


Heavy Cargo

by Spoon888



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alien Biology, Childbirth, M/M, Mech Preg (Transformers), Sticky Sexual Interfacing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:00:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24371683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spoon888/pseuds/Spoon888
Summary: Medical opinion had been overwhelmingly in favour of Megatron not trying for a sparkling. He was too old, his frame was too worn, and his lifestyle was not in the least forgiving.Continuation of MegaStar Advent Calender Chapter 10: Heavy Cargo.
Relationships: Megatron/Starscream (Transformers)
Comments: 120
Kudos: 357





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Megastar Advent Calendar](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21636298) by [Spoon888](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spoon888/pseuds/Spoon888). 



Megatron had never been the delusional sort that assumed reproduction was a seamless, stress free experience, but this last trimester in particular was certainly taking it's toll on him. 

The previous two had been inconvenient, yes, but he had known what to expect. The usual changes; getting heavier, consuming more fuel, losing his patience, needing longer recharge cycles- but the past month or so had been an unpredictable whirlwind of symptoms and side affects. 

When he woke in the mornings he had no idea what to expect; if he would have to leap from the berth and sprint to the wash-racks to spent half the cycle hacking up the dregs of the previous evening's unprocessed fuel over the drain. If he'd spend an unmotivated day sat scowling in his throne, daydreaming about new and creative ways to kill anyone who dared disturb him. If he'd wile away long hours in his berth, spamming Starscream's comm with demands he return to his quarters and indulge his leader's surging desires. 

Some cycles it was a combination of everything at once, and he was left in a maddening state of limbo, unsure if he was hungry, or horny, or nauseous, or furious. 

After his command staff's near mutiny in removing him from active leadership for the remainder of his ...condition, Megatron had managed to talk Starscream down into allowing him light duty. _Allowing_ him. _Light duty_. As though he wasn't _already_ the supreme leader of this war faction unjusted shafted onto the sidelines - and all because he had a clutch of parasitic little monsters kicking around inside him, pulling his strings not unlike their puppet-master of a sire. 

He grunted when it felt like one of them had just stabbed him in the fuel pump. _Wings_ , he thought with a resentful growl, rubbing the ache beneath his armour but otherwise refusing to move during the internal assault. There were tiny seekers inside him, he was sure of it. Ground based protoforms were not nearly so restless. 

And that was fine for a seeker's carriage, _they_ had failsafes to ensure they only ever gestated one new-spark at a time. Having six confirmed spark signatures residing inside him, meant there was always at least one rioting inside Megatron's tank.

They put him off his fuel, they woke him in the middle of the night, they put extreme pressure on his internals, and should he dare partake in any activity more strenuous than the most sedate of strolls, he was left clutching at the wall, wheezing in exhaustion. 

Another protoform twisted and seemed to _sketch_ inside him, sending a ripple of pain shooting up his spinal strut. He hissed and sat up, glaring dangers at his own chassis. It was only his last lingering specks of common sense that stopped him from punching himself in the gut to make them stop. 

As if sensing the threat of impending violence, they settled down. Grateful for the reprieve, Megatron slumped back in his throne again, his legs splayed wide and stretched out in front of him. His poor posture and increased weight was putting a strain on his back, but he couldn't be bothered to rectify it. 

"Ahem?" 

Megatron cracked an optic online to find Swindle had materialised before his throne. He shuttered his optics again with a weary noise, hoping he would get the hint, abandon whatever foolish idea had driven him to seek his heavily sparked leader, and leave on his own volition. 

Preferably without trying to dump a stack of data-pads on him. 

Because 'light duty' of course, meant _paperwork_ , a 'hobby' that Soundwave alone relished. And since Megatron's third-in-command selfishly bogarted the more interesting (if it could even be called that) admin work the day-to-day running of the base required, Megatron was neglectfully left with whatever the communications officer didn't want to bother with - the banal and the petty. In other words; request forms. 

"If you've come to ask for a game extension for the vid-screen in the rec-" he began dangerously. 

"Nothing so banal, my lord," Swindle had the nerve to grin at him. "I've come here for your benefit."

Megatron let his helm fall back to rest against the top of the throne as a wave of nausea came over him from out of nowhere. His benefit? It certainly didn't feel like it. 

"Starscream mentioned you were getting a little uncomfortable."

"Did he?!" Megatron snapped his helm up and snarled. "Whatever gave him that impression?!" He gestured to himself. At how his once powerful, imposing, gladiatorial physique had become a proverbial _barge_ crammed full of sparklings. 

Swindle held one hand up placatingly and dipped the other into his subspace, "Now now, there's no problem so small that the free market hasn't endeavoured to solve it, my lord. So I thought look into something that might help."

Megatron was so desperate at this point that he'd be willing to listen to even Swindle. He stowed his temper, for now, and shifted upright, bracing a hand against the small of his back so his spinal strut didn't snap clean in two from the weight of his growing protoforms.

"This had better be good-"

"Oh, it is sir, it definitely is. After many hours research and many more developing a prototype-" Swindle paused before pulling whatever miracle solution he had brought out of his subspace. 

And Megatron's mood abruptly reversed into sullen depths of his psyche at the sight of the massive, C-shaped pillow the mech was presenting him with. 

"Here see," Swindle swung the ridiculous contraption over his shoulder. "It's what the organics call a pregnancy pillow-"

"Get out," Megatron ordered quietly. 

"-alleviates back pain and supports the organic womb, which is ironically alike that of a gestational -"

"Get out before I _strangle_ _you with it!"_ Megatron surged to his pedes and roared, but fell abruptly back into his throne when a wave of lightheadedness swept over him. Swindle was wise enough to scurry backwards through the doors anyway, crooning apologies. 

He paused in the doorway before leaving though, and reached around the door frame to prop his insulting gift against the bulkhead. "Just in case-"

"Out!" 

* * *

The most unbearable aspect of his entire situation was that Megatron's back hurt to such an intolerable extent that he took the pillow back with him to his quarters anyway. 

When Starscream arrived back from his shift, enjoying his new - _temporary_ \- life living in the limelight as the Decepticon's acting leader, he arched his brow at the sight of Megatron lying curled around the large plush pillow, but wisely said nothing. 

It was worse that way. Because now Megatron didn't know what sort of insulting assumptions he was making. 

"When this is over," Megatron murmured against the fabric, too comfortable to move. "There will be a reckoning. For you. For _all_ of you. But you in particular." 

"When this is over," Starscream slid his sleek, trim frame into the berth next to him and his ridiculous pillow. "You will be too busy chasing half-a-dozen unruly sparklings to remember any of this." 

To add insult to injury, he leaned across and pressed a lingering, mockingly affectionate kiss to Megatron's creased brow. 

Had he been willing to do anything more strenuous than twitch, he would have cuffed the pest around the back of the helm for his cheek. 

* * *

  
By virtue of rank, and current endowed condition, Megatron was frequently at liberty to cut long waiting lines outside the repair bay to be seen by his medics. 

Before his carriage he had always detested visits to the repair bay, only conceding to stand still long enough to go through the barest of work, preferring to allow his self-repair to bear the brunt of his recovery. A toxically independent part of him had never wanted to weaken himself by relying too much on their skills. He had feared his frame would somehow become lax in it's duty of keeping him fit and functional.

Now though? There were aspects to the attention that he found himself rather enjoying. 

Hook didn't dare comment on the increasing frequency of his visits, nor the increasing petty reasons for them. The Megatron who had once insisted that he could walk off a missing leg was now bothering him over every nick and dent and twinge of pain. It wasn't that Megatron cared much for his own comfort, he simply hoped that with every visit he paid to the medics the chance of one of them telling him 'good news' would increase. 

Good news being an end to this cursed carriage. 

"When are these blasted things going to come out?!" He finally cracked and demanded. 

Hook blinked, scanner aloft. "I can't be sure, sir. The protoforms will know when they're ready-"

"Damn the protoforms," Megatron snarled, slamming his fist against an equipment table. "What do they know about being ready?! _I_ say they are. And I can't take much more of their kicking!" 

Hook looked at him for a long time. "I ...suppose I can take a look." 

Megatron's armour locked closer together. He had no idea what that entailed, and he wasn't entirely sure his dignity would put up with it. "You're not sticking anything up my-"

"No!" Hook threw his hands up hurriedly. "I wouldn't dream of- no of course not. It's a scan. An external scan." 

Megatron reluctantly accepted those terms. If this scan could in anyway inform Hook better on how they were to proceed with, and preferably speed up, his gestation, he was willing to weather it. 

He reclined on a plain slab of metal and let his arms rest either side of him, glaring resolutely up at the ceiling so he wouldn't accidentally glimpse down and see what a mockery his chassis had become. He felt a ripple of movement carry through him from deep within his frame, where his gestation tank sat well protected, and clenched his fists angrily. 

Hook pressed a gun-like device to the centre of his chassis and pulled the trigger. A faint, brief flash of heat registered to Megatron's sensors, and Hook drew it away again. "There." 

Relieved, Megatron sat up again, looking over Hook's shoulder to study what looked like a diagram loading onto the nearest monitor screen. Hook tensed at his proximity, but Megatron paid him no mind, trying to decipher what the pictures on the screen meant. He couldn't make helm or wing out of it.

"Look's like a scrap heap," he grunted, squinting at the mess of sharp shapes twisted and folded around each other. 

"That's your gestation tank," Hook explained. "And the 'scrap', as you so aptly called it, are your protoforms." 

Megatron leant in again. "Where?!"

"It's a compact space," Hook continued. "Even for a mech of your size." He cleared his vocaliser tactfully. "To maximise the space available, the armour and wings of the sparklings will be intertwined and slotted together." He pointed to a tiny triangle. "They develop in a state between bipedal and alt-mode, and with transform into root mode when they are ready to emerge. See, there's a wing." 

"They already have wings," Megatron stated, dread setting in. 

"They will fold flat during emergence," Hook reassured him, sensing his apprehension. Megatron's mood darkened at the implication that he even needed soothing. 

He was still reeling at the thought of something not quite going to plan and these things deciding to come out of him as half-seeker, half-jet monstrosities. Planes with legs? Planes with arms?! He shuddered with the horror of it. Whatever hack had gone around spouting rhetoric about creator-hood being some sort of beautiful miracle deserved vivisection via Overlord welding a blunt axe. 

And perhaps Starscream too, for putting him in this condition. 

"I've yet to hear an emergence date," Megatron growled, wanting this over and done with now. The novelty had long since worm off. 

Hook would have started sweating had their species been capable of it. "I can't be sure-"

"Take a guess."

"There are natural methods to speeding up the process," Hook said hurriedly, voice pitching up. "And to triggering the emergence in overdue carriers, I can only suggest-" 

Megatron loomed, at this point willing to do anything, "Suggest what?" 

Hook shrank back in terror. "A - a good hard frag can sometimes get the ball rolling?"

* * *

  
Megatron dragged Starscream away from the comm console in his quarters and began bullying him back towards the berth with size alone, blocking his attempt at evasion with very extra inch of mass he was hauling. 

"You realise, not everyone has the leisure time to wile an entire evening away in berth?" Starscream grouched at him, clueless and unsympathetic and doing a deplorable job of tending to his uncomfortably heavy leader. 

With a wordless grunt Megatron summoned whatever strength he was still in possession of to fling him at the berth. Optics blowing comically wide, Starscream bounced once then fell flat on his back across it, wings weighing his top half down. 

It was time to get these sparklings out of him, and that the best suggested technique was already an activity Megatron felt more than happy to partake in frequently, was a bonus. He would ride his second in command for hours if he had to. 

All other conscious thought had been driven from his mind by protocols and hormones and _need_ the very second his valve array onlined at the sight of Starscream's pretty wings fluttering and twitching before him. Megatron climbed onto the berth after him. He crawled up Starscream's legs on all fours, knee joints creaking from the extra weight in his chassis, and dropped his helm with a breathy moan into Starscream's lap.

"Does this require my full attention?" Starscream asked, data-pad still clutched in hand. 

Megatron smacked in out of his grasp, chaffing at the thought of Starscream's optics on anything but him. 

He nuzzled the seam of Starscream's panels indulgently, and a slim thigh twitched beside his head. Breathing in, Megatron's olfactory filled with the longed-for scent of his mate. Starscream kept himself in impeccable condition, but all valves were self-cleaning and gave off a unique, oily fragrance. The memory of Starscream's lubricants took Megatron back to their hot nights together in Kaon, him laying on the floor of the arena-armoury with Starscream straddling his face- 

But that wasn't what he wanted Starscream for tonight. 

His hips swayed as the arrays between his legs began to stir. The tingle of interest was more insistent at the core of him than it was the thickening bulge beneath his codpiece. He laid flat on his front across Starscream's legs and licked a long, slow strip up the seeker's hot panels, letting the tip of his tongue flick playfully into the upper seam of Starscream's codpiece. 

There was a distant, almost lost part of him -his ego and his pride- that would have been ashamed by his untamed desperation for Starscream's spike. But that Megatron had never carried before. And that Megatron had no idea how good it felt to let go of all his inhibitions and let himself be taken care of. 

"Alright," a hand fell to the back of his helmet. Starscream sounded infuriatingly weary for someone with a very willing partner lavishing his codpiece with so much attention. Megatron felt a growl rise up his throat.

"But we'll have to be quick about it." Starscream warned. "Those messages won't answer themselves." 

With that Starscream's codpiece transformed away and his spike extended in one smooth whoosh, a contrast to his put-out tone of voice. 

Megatron's ignored that he would have once been inconsolably insulted by Starscream's flippancy, and instead lifted his head and took the tip of Starscream's spike into his mouth. Starscream sighed contently and folded an arm behind his head. For all the seeekr's talk in the earlier stages of Megatron's carriage that he would take care of him, dote on him, be at his beck and call, he wasn't exactly jumping to accomodate him now. 

Starscream continued to emit, soft, pleased noises as he petted Megatron's helmet, letting him bob his head, taking the spike deeper with every pass. 

Megatron let his own panel fold away and rocked his hips against the berth to relieve some of his burning need. His anterior node was swollen and so sensitive that even the friction of the sheets against it was pleasant enough. 

Starscream's hand pressed down on the back of his head, and lustful and hedonistic as Megatron was he didn't resist, allowing the gentle pressure to push him down until his nasal ridge was squashed against pelvic armour, the tip of Starscream's spike nudging into his throat. 

The pressure of Starscream's hand on his head let up, allowing him to pull back a little, before pressing down again with a vengeance, jabbing the spike back down his throat. He repeated the motion, again and again, building a rhythm. Megatron fisted his hands in the berth sheets either side of Starscream's hips and sucked air in through his secondary vents, relaxing his throat and grunting around the intrusion. He felt the sheets under his hips dampen with his lubricant as Starscream deep-throated him, the seeker's own vents quickening and hitching. 

In the back of Megatron's mind he knew he should be thinking about pulling away before Starscream overloaded and slinked off back to his oh-so-important duties, leaving him with a neglected valve and a fuel-tank full of transfluid. But a thick fog had settled over his mind, and thinking beyond the next few hedonistic seconds was impossible. He wanted Starscream to overload, to use him. He wanted to taste him. 

When Starscream next let him up Megatron fought against the pressure of the hand urging him down again. He drew back until just the tip of Starscream's spike rested between his lips, then sucked, hard. 

Starscream jolted beneath him and overloaded with a shout. Megatron purred as pulses of warm syrupy fluid spilled across the glossa, bitter with metals but sweet with charge. He swallowed it, tongue curling and flicking around Starscream's softening spike to get at every last drop. 

When there was nothing left to take he let it fall from his mouth so it rested against Starscream's hip. He caught his breath as he watched it soften into a refractory period.

Slag. 

With a sudden wave of self-deprecating frustration he dropped his helm into Starscream's lap and huffed in irritation. 

"Don't make that stupid noise at me," Starscream muttered. In the next moment he was propping himself up onto his elbows to glare at Megatron. "I did as you asked, now, if you don't mind, I have to-"

He pointed towards the comm console behind them, but stopped when Megatron pushed himself upright (with great effort) and sat back on his heels. Between his thighs his valve glistened with fluids, the rim winking in near-painful need. 

Starscream's optics fell to it. His spike twitched against his hip. Thank Primus for flight-frame stamina. 

Starscream clenched his jaw and served Megatron with a glare. There standoff was brief.

"Get over here then," Starscream gestured to his lap in forfeit. "I'm worn out, you'll have to do the work." 

Megatron stared incredulously. 

" _You're_ worn out?" He said fiercely, lifting a hand to wipe away a fleck of drying transfluid from his bottom lip. "Do you have any idea his many tonnes these sparklings weigh? And you expect me to do all the work?" 

Starscream rolled his optics -emphatic sire he was. "Oh really, Megatron. What's a few extra tonnes? You already weigh, what? Two hundred?" 

He finished with a sly smirk. Despite Starscream's intolerably overblown ego, Megatron's valve pulsed at the sight of his quirked mouth. He didn't let it show.

"All the easier to crush you with," he growled, shifting his weight back onto his knees to crawl over Starscream. 

To his relief, Starscream wrapped arms around his middle and pulled him down so they were lying flush together, him on top of Starscream. He had clearly intended for it to be an affectionate gesture, but the wheeze the press of Megatron's heavy frame drew out of Starscream sounded pained. Megatron allowed himself his own smirk as he ironically made good on his threat to crush the seeker. 

Starscream muttered an oath and pushed against the berth to roll them so Megatron was on his back. To make up for the earlier lack of foreplay -or perhaps as a reward for the fantastic head Megatron had just given him, Starscream lavished him with kisses and stroking fingers, dipping digits and tongue into every available seam. Starscream lifted and shoved at his thighs to get them into a position to his liking, then continued his ministrations with his thickening spike grinding against Megatron's soft, swollen valve. 

Megatron wrapped arms around him and held onto Starscream's his wings to brace himself, tipping his helm back as Starscream tongued at the controls on his chest, now more sensitive than they'd ever been before. 

He was gentle only at the beginning, gripping his spike and pushing it against Megatron's plush rim. His valve swallowed the tip with an easy pop and Megatron hummed, clenching around the intrusion readily. 

Starscream released himself, wiped his damp hand on Megatron's hip, and began to feed his spike into the lavishly supple valve in gradual little pushes, sinking an inch or so deeper each time. As soon as the full length was nestled tightly inside he switched to ruthless, quick thrusts, his hips snapping forward and nailing the _something_ inside Megatron that made him see stars. 

Megatron started to pant, surprisingly himself with his own frantic gasps of delight. Starscream buried his face against his neck with a snarl and sunk his denta into his throat cabling and started to rut, and the repeated pummelling to Megatron's core sensors tipped him over the edge. 

He arched his huge cumbersome frame clean off the berth with his overload, his vocaliser releasing a series of wailing cries that rose and fell with Starscream's continued ruts. He heard the seeker exhale sharply in amusement and felt his sly mouth curving at the corners against his neck. 

Megatron shuttered his optics and rode out his high, fingers pressing against Starscream's wings as he willed his own treacherous vocaliser to stop bleating out his cries. The bloated ache of pleasure lingered low in his tanks for some time, his frame shaking with the ebbs of it like an addict coming down from a high. 

It was glorious. It was the sort of feeling only a sparked mech had the privilege of experiencing. He felt sated and fulfilled in ways he never would have felt possible. He felt like he was in love, with both the infuriating mate he had chosen for himself and the unsparked miracles they had made together. 

It was not a feeling that would last long after their coupling, but he savoured it while he could. Before the detested backache returned...

Eventually, Starscream overloaded for the second time, this time lodged deep into his valve. It was a much softer affair than his first. He kissed Megatron through it lazily, shifting off of him afterwards to lie at his side so not to exacerbate his ever present discomfort. 

Megatron kissed back, lifting a weak arm to bring it to his own chassis, rubbing in circles to sooth the flurry of activity within. It was hard to bask in the aftermath of a good frag for long with six blasted sparklings kicking his every internal part in reaction to their carrier's elevated spark-beat. Despite their enthusiasm, they weren't yet showing any signs of wanting to exit his weary frame. 

Making the evening an utter failure. 

Hook would be heaving about this. 

Starscream's hand joined his over his chassis, and in a rare show of affection he threaded their fingers together. Megatron began to drift off, only absently aware of Starscream leaving their berth to return to the comm console. 

He was back again in what seemed like no time at all, slipping under covers Megatron couldn't remember getting under himself and tormenting his leader with cold toe-pedes against his shin armour. 

"Must you," he grunted, optics still shuttered. 

"Big carrying tankers like you run hotter," Starscream explained, spooning against his back when Megatron rolled away from him. "I'd be a fool not to take advantage whilst I can." 

Megatron snorted. If there was one thing Starscream was good at, it was taking advantage of his poor leader, whatever condition he was in.

* * *

  
Megatron glared down at his chassis. 

As if to test his patience, _someone_ kicked him. 

This was beyond intolerable. These sparklings were more than developed enough to survive on their own in the outside world and their insistence on leeching off him like parasites was unacceptable and unbefitting their future stations as his heirs. 

Were they not his own sparklings, protected by mind-addling carrying protocols that insisted he love and dote on them like a soft-sparked Autobot, he could have sat on a gas grenade by now to try and smoke them out. 

He still might, if this went on any longer. 

Hook's theory that a good 'face would hurry things along was clearly junk, either that, or Starscream simply wasn't doing it thoroughly enough. Whatever the reason, it was obvious that he needed to look elsewhere for solutions. 

It was no longer actually within his authority to do so, but he summoned mechs to his war chambers. If any of them were surprised to be called in by a heavily carrying Megatron they had been under the impression was on medical bedrest for the foreseeable future, none of them were foolish enough to let on. 

Starscream and Soundwave had been wisely left uninvited, as it was likely they would neither approve of him leading meetings or the subject matter of this one. 

Because Starscream wanted to see him suffer for as long as possible. And Soundwave was a firm believer in letting a carriage take it's natural course. 

Megatron simply wanted the six devils sat directly on top his fuel tanks _out_ of him.

"I have summoned you here as you are my most trusted and competent of followers," he began, surveying the handful of gathered Decepticons. 

He saw Scrapper look across the table at Motormaster with a confused frown. 

He ignored them. "And it won't come as a surprise to you to hear that I have been waylaid for some time now. For too long, in fact. I require some assistance in hurrying the process along." 

He was grateful that they were at least intelligent enough to get the gist of what he was asking without him having to spell it out in mortifying detail. 

Skywarp was the first to stick in his hand into air, grin blindingly mischievous. "I heard 'facing is pretty good for that." 

"You think 'facing is _good_ for everything," Megatron also heard Thundercracker mutter to his trine-mate under his breath, his arms folded crossly. 

He nodded at the seekers stiffly, and elected not to admit that he had already tried such a method. Several times over. To no avail. 

"Anything else?" 

"Spicy rust sticks," Scrapper suggested. 

"Sticking your legs in the air," Onslaught called. 

"Jumping up and down?" 

"Electrocuting yourself!" 

Megatron listened to the suggestions rolling in, each more stupid than the last. He placed his hands on his full hips and sighed. At this rate these sparklings were never coming out of him. 

* * *

  
Starscream found him in his quarters later, a knowing smirk stretched across his sly, smug face when he came to stand next to the berth to look down on him. 

Megatron, chewing unenthusiasticaly on a lump of rust stick and legs elevated by a stack of pillows, met his gaze. "Come to bask in my humiliation, have you? Haven't I fallen far enough?" 

Starscream sat on the edge of the berth and took the remaining rust stick out of his hand. He tossed it away somewhere over his shoulder and leaned forwards on his hands to drop his head to Megatron's chassis. 

Megatron's spark-beat quickened at the seeker's proximity. His frame stirred with warmth whenever it recognised the presence of his sparkling's code bearer. He relaxed again when he realised Starscream was only listening for their sparklings, his audial pressing flush to the armour of his abdomen 

"They do seem rather active," Starscream conceded, lifting his head again. 

"Your pathetic coding is to thank for this," Megatron growled. "Were they anything but fussy little fliers, they would have been out and walking by now." 

"Ah, so this is my fault?"

"You put them inside of me." 

"You _asked_ me to," Starscream reminded him proudly. "And I have to say, it's certainly suited you, all this." 

"What does? _Sedation_?!" Megatron snarled. 

"Oh hardly," Starscream snorted. "Perhaps if you didn't spent your every waking minute stomping around this base complaining about them they might have decided to emerge by now. It's no wonder they want to stay in there. They're probably petrified of actually having to meet you." 

Megatron scowled. "It'll be you they're frightened off." 

"Me?" Starscream cooed, stretching himself out along the berth beside Megatron, his cockpit resting against the side of his large chassis. His waist was narrow and trim. Megatron looped an arm around it enviously. "Impossible, they can wait to meet me." 

He stroked a hand over Megatron's chassis, and a flutter of activity followed. "See?"

Megatron growled wordlessly under his breath. 

"I do wonder why you decided to take the advice of those idiots over me though," Starscream sighed teasingly. "If you wanted to nudge things along I would have been more than happy to assist." 

"What would you suggest?" Megatron snapped. "Sit down, shut up, and wait? That's all you want from me. You're _enjoying_ my indisposition." 

"You're your own worst enemy," Starscream hummed warmly, and despite how his every word and action infuriated Megatron, he was a soothing presence to lie with. Megatron leaned into him a little more, turning his chassis towards him. Starscream's hand rested across it, his fingers stroking little circles across the armour. "I know exactly how to get these out of you." 

Megatron groaned at the thought of vigorous interfacing after the amount of rust sticks he had just consumed. "I'm not in the mood-"

"I would blame your protocols for you assuming any solution I could offer involves fragging," Starscream teased with an eye roll, "But you were just as hedonistic before you started carrying too." 

Megatron lip curled. 

"Here," Starscream breathed against his audial, his hand sliding up towards the buttons on his chassis. "All it takes is a little..."

He flicked the red button on the control panel on Megatron's chassis. It was always sensitive, and sent the usual delightful tingles through Megatron's sensor net, but beyond that, nothing particularly exciting happened. Starscream did it again, playing with the entire selection of knobs and switches, ghosting his fingers over them, flicking them lightly, and the tingles grew and grew, until Megatron felt something shift then clench between his hips. 

He huffed, "You said no interfacing." 

Starscream laughed, and wriggled a button. Then suddenly, the pleasant tickle between his hips bloomed into something fierce and aching. He gasped as sharp pain shot up his back-strut, something deep with him shifting out of place and unlocking. 

"There," Starscream sat up with a dazzling, devious smile. 

Megatron folded his arms around his clenching, rippling chassis and grimaced with optics bright in surprise. "What have you done?!" 

"I haven't done anything," Starscream slid off the berth quickly. "The sparklings have decided to emerge. So hurry up and get off the berth before you leak oil and disgusting fluids all over it." 

"This better have been a fragging coincidence," Megatron grumbled to himself as he struggled to sit upright. 

Because if Starscream had known how to get these things out of him this _whole time_ he was going to throw him through the first airlock they passed. 

As soon as these little parasites were old enough to take care of themselves, that was.

No matter how infuriating Starscream was, there no chance that Megatron was going to inflict raising all six of them as a single parent on himself. After all, he was hardly Soundwave. 


	2. Chapter 2

The idea of facing something so unknown when so unprepared unnerved Megatron far more than he would ever have liked to admit. So yes, in the private hours he could steal away for himself, he had perused more than a fair share of informative data-files on the subject of emergence, pilfered subtly from the ship's limited med-tech database. 

They were woefully out of date and all assumed the emergence itself would be taking place in the white sterile, elitist private rooms of a Cybertronian med-centre, surrounded by top of the line equipment and medics with centuries of experience, trained specifically in that fields. 

And even then, after reading about those pristine, ideal scenarios, he had come away from his studies feeling less reassured about the entire experience than he had before he had started reading. The diagrams didn't seem natural, the process of it all sounded alien and barbaric. Surely their species had advanced beyond the humiliation of having to bear down and _squeeze_ their offspring out of an orifice space ten times too small for the task? 

Perhaps if they hadn't all been so preoccupied trying to kill one another over the last four million years someone might have concocted a more dignified method of sparkling a protoform. Or two. Or _six_. 

In all his impatience to get the fidgeting gang of seekers out of him, he had conveniently forgotten that the worst was yet to come. He could already feel his internals ...changing. Parts were rearranging themselves and shifting aside, the protoforms within his gestation tank were moving around as they tested out their transformation cogs for the first time. 

Megatron was struck with a vision of adorably small, yet _razor-sharp_ juvenile seeker wings passing through his emergence tunnel, and his dread was so keenly felt he thought he would be sick. 

Perhaps he had been too hasty. Surely his sparklings would benefit from those additional few days in gestation after all, perhaps even weeks more within the safe haven of his chassis? It was still early into the emergence. Perhaps Hook could reverse the process.

Alone in an empty, grey room it was difficult not to let those thoughts overcome him. 

He had been deposited on a hard metal slab in the repair bay -hardly the comfortable, oil-filled emergence-pod he had seen in holograms in his data-files- and told to 'sit tight' by an unacceptably cheery Hook for now. Starscream had wandered off in search of reading material, clearly anticipating that they would be waiting for some time and in need of a distraction, blissfully oblivious to the idea that the mech carrying his ungrateful spawn for him might need the reassurance of his company! 

He had asked in a teasing tone if Megatron would be alright until he got back. 

Unwilling to admit to any such feelings of fear or apprehension, Megatron cursed him out of the room. 

He'd be lucky if the seeker came back to him at all. 

It had been a full half hour now, and nothing particularly interesting had happened yet. His spark pulse began to settle with relief. 

As he sat, legs hanging off the edge of the slab, hands braced against his knees, he began to wonder if his clueless field-medics were actually mistaken. His own nerves had set him on edge, but it certainly didn't feel like he was about to go into an emergence. The occasional ripple of pain gripped at his internals, but he hardly resembled the picture's he had seen of carriers in the process of sparking young -disheveled, flushed, screaming, and blooming with steam and escaping pressure. Or perhaps the examples of carriers in the file had merely been particularly pathetic. 

To his surprise (and relief) Starscream did return to him, flinging an assortment of data-pads at the slab next to him. 

"A less forgiving mate would have left you without distractions," Starscream muttered, taking a seat next to the berth and switching his chosen data-pad online. He whipped a pair of vision-aids out of his subspace and set them on the narrow bridge of his nose. 

"You look a fool," Megatron's loosened tongue sneered. 

Starscream glanced at him over the top of the wire-thin rim, his look of condescension heightened by the glasses. It was so effective a stare, he didn't need to respond at all. Megatron looked away, suitably reprimanded. 

His optics fell to some of the data-pads he had been brought. He sneered in displeasure; factual and scientific? "You're a hateful seeker," he growled. "Where are my novels?" 

"You might as well start educating yourself now," Starscream murmured breezily, clawed digit scrolling through his data-pad. "You're about to become a creator. You can't have your own offspring outsmarting you before they can even walk now, can you?" 

Megatron knocked the data-pads off his slab and onto the floor and swung his legs up to recline across it. Starscream didn't comment on his childish display, and rather than rise to it, he adjusted the glasses on the tip of his nose. 

Without an argument to distract him, Megatron was forced to stare around the room in search of entertainment to detract from the odd pressure growing into awareness down in his gestation tank, like a damn about to burst. 

They sat in silence together for some time, Megatron breathing carefully through increasingly painful cramps. 

The silence was eventually broken by an irritating _pit-patter_ of dripping liquid. Megatron sat up, looking around the ceiling and walls for any potential leaks. The last thing he wanted to do was spark his offspring into a med-bay flooded with seawater. 

"Megatron," Starscream was looking at him, or rather, between his legs. 

Megatron sat up fully and found himself sitting in a puddle of his own making, the contents of which were spilling over the edge of his slab and trickling onto the floor. The clear, watery fluid was spilling out from under his panel. Gestational fluids. 

He swallowed thickly, shifting a thigh aside to see himself better. Starscream used his distraction to summon the medics. 

Another far from ideal aspect to this entire fiasco - the _witnesses_. 

Starscream was bad enough, but as the sire to those sparklings, he made a good argument on why he should be allowed to witness what was likely to be his leader at his most vulnerable. The data-files Megatron had read spoke at length about the benefit of private emergences in the relaxed environment of the carrier's own home, and that had immediately become his first choice. Rather naively, he had assumed this was something he could do without the constant fussing of his own subordinates. 

It wasn't too be. The underwater base was no one's home, not even his, and even his own quarters made a far from soothing environment. 

There was also the matter of ...age. The happy carriers he had read about, able to enjoy the process of bringing their little ones into the world within the privacy of their own home, were young and bright optic'd. They certainly weren't ancient, battle-scarred warlords, hauling around half a dozen seekers who were coming out of him _wings first_ , if Starscream's spiteful teasing was in any way truthful. 

And with that last longing thought for what could have been, the repair-bay doors slipped open to spill the entire base's medical staff into the room. Megatron fell back across the berth with a heavy exhale, letting his legs splay open as he decided to worry about dignity and reputation another cycle. 

As the medics crowded around his legs -ignoring his top half completely, how demeaning- a pair of angelically white wings appeared in his peripheral. He turned his head and watched passively as Starscream trailed his digits over the top of his hand, not quite taking it and clinging to him like they were a pair of codependent Autobot's, but offering him a comforting touch. 

That Starscream was still wearing the idiotic glasses helped distract him some.

Megatron felt his frame relax a little, and the conscious unclenching created another stir of motion in his internals. He grimaced against the sudden pain, but where before it had ebbed away within seconds, now it grew and grew. He had arrogantly told himself he would not succumb to making a spectacle of himself. That he would not scream the ship down with dramatics. 

He had been stabbed, dragged, kicked, punched, burned, skewered, poisoned, beaten, choked, and blown up- he thought he could handle an emergence as stoically as he had all previous attacks. 

He could not. He snatched Starscream's hand and squeezed until he felt something _snap_ , tossing his head back and arching his back to yell sharply, in near perfect unison with Starscream's own shriek. 

The medics all started talking at once. One of then -and he _would_ be finding out _which_ after all this was over- triggered the manual release on his valve panel as he was writhing in unbearable pain. He only registered the feel of fingers inside him when they withdrew. 

"The gestation seal is at forty percent," he heard on one them announce pompously. 

Megatron surged upright to bellow at them, "They're trying to split me open!" 

Other medics started patting his shoulders and murmuring nonsense to get him to recline again. Starscream had managed to twist his hand free and was now cradling it in melodramatic duress. "You broke my hand!" 

Megatron flung out a hand and finally knocked the blasted glasses off his face. Starscream cursed. 

"I'm mid-emergence, you selfish fool!" Megatron snarled at him, gripping the edges of the slab to brace against wave after wave of agony, all poise and dignity having long since left this repair-bay. 

One of the medics broke away and Megatron assumed the self-obsessed seeker was getting medical treatment of his own because there was a blissful reprieve from Starscream's complaining. He was left to moan and suffer through contractions for some time, with very little process being made. Every so often they would invade his valve, asking casually if they could check his gestation seal with their fingers _already_ lodged inside him -for haste, they claimed when he snapped at them, like they couldn't wait the half-second it took for him to agree. 

He had never been so aware of such a stark difference in the bedside manner of field-medics and their more experienced emergence-trained counterparts. 

Everything Megatron had read could be tossed out as useless information. He felt like he should have forced Hook to read them rather than look at them himself. For the first time he found himself realising that sometimes _good_ medical care was more than just skilled hands and encyclopaedic knowledge. Compassion and patience were a must. 

He was going to slam Hook into a bulkhead head first after this. That would drive the point home. 

After what seemed like eons Starscream was back at his side, sans glasses, less grumpy than Megatron would have expected, but keeping his hands and wings and all extremities well out of Megatron's reach. 

Hours must have gone by. His vocaliser was hoarse and rough from both shouting and trying _not_ to shout. No sparklings had made any attempt at coming into the world yet, and at this rate, Megatron wondered if he was expected to lie here in torture for days. 

Until finally- 

"Fully dilated," he heard a medic speak behind his shuttered optics. 

"Excellent," he heard the clap of Hook bringing his hands together. "It's time to spark these protoforms, Lord Megatron." 

Dread overcame Megatron, and confusion. He winked an optic online. "Is that not what I have _been_ doing all night?!" 

Hook nodded in agreement, nowhere near as fearful of his leader as he should have been. "Quite right, sir, except this time you're pushing." 

Megatron let his helm fall to the side. He was drained. He was at his wits end. 

"No," he breathed raggedly. "I can't-"

"Don't be stupid," Starscream muttered, his gentle caresses to Megatron's helm contrasting with his harsh tone. "You have to-"

But he was exhausted. He didn't have the strength to spark one of his offspring, let alone six. He couldn't do it. Defeat swept through him as that realisation overwhelmed him. His vents came thick and fast, ragged. He was going to fail - fail at someone so instinctive and natural-

His hopelessness had to step to one side when his frame was wracked with another contraction. He sat up and bore down, the overwhelming urge to push overriding everything else. He gripped the edges of the slab hard enough to bend the metal to the imprint of his fingers. A new pain joined the strut-deep ache of his internals then - a tight, sharp pressure between his legs, like something was lodged-

"Relax," Hook was advising. "Wait for it-"

Wait for _what_ , Megatron wanted to ask when another contraction wracked through him and then- 

Release. 

He dropped back to the berth with exhausted broken gasps. Starscream's hand was distractedly massaging one of Megatron's bulky shoulders, his optics locked onto whatever the medics were doing. But there was little time for rest. The pressure began to build again. 

This time Megatron found himself with his pedes braced against the shoulders of two medics. His face contorted with strain as he pushed with all his waning strength. The medics stumbled and two more had to help brace his pedes as his power overcame them. 

Things became a blur then. Absently he knew he was already a creator, and that a growing number of sparklings were just out of his reach. And he had somehow, someway managed to do this. But there were more to come yet, and the medics were reluctant to distract him now that he had found a good rhythm. 

He had lost count at some point, so he was struck with dazed surprise when the last contraction began to ebb away and there was no more forthcoming. He felt himself fall back strutlessly, and didn't know if he'd ever have the strength to stand again after all that. 

Starscream was abuzz with energy next to him, darting between medics and his side, speaking fast and with unguarded enthusiasm. Despite Megatron's spark aching with a sudden loneliness in the absence of new-sparks, his latent affection for Starscream had it swelling again in a burst of light and warmth. 

There were too many sparklings for him to possibly hold and appreciate all at once, but the first one he got a good look at was indeed a seeker, proving all the pre-emergence tests he had never fully believed correct. 

He didn't know her yet but she was perfect. Her armour dominated by Starscream's brilliant red. Megatron couldn't sit up to hold her properly, and instead allowed the medic to let her rest against his chest. She was smaller than he had imagined, and did indeed possess little wings. Lifting a finger to trace one, Megatron was relieved to find the edges were rounded and blunt. Whatever mess his valve was in now, at least it hadn't had to endure the horror of _that_. 

All six sparklings were healthy, and all six a standard size for seekerlets despite their cramped developing conditions. And all six were as equally hyperactive resting across his chest as they had been inside him. 

"Your offspring through and through," Megatron groaned, shuttering his optics again, hand resting over and nearly engulfing the tiny seeker lying over his insignia. 

Starscream, cradling a squirming ball of armour in each arm, only smirked. 

* * *

There was something charming about his offspring, not only in that they were new-sparks, but that they were seekers too.

He hadn't given much though to their coding-defined frame-type beyond what sort of future it might give them. They would be fliers, like Starscream. And perhaps that meant they would take after their sire more than they would him, in personality and temperament and interests - and wasn't that a terrifying prospect. 

What it actually meant, was that he had been presented by the universe with six parodies of what he knew to be seekers -only miniaturised, disproportion, _rounded_ versions. They were much thicker than he had expected when he had imagined gangly, flimsy flight-frames. They were mostly _wing_ as well. The appendages on their backs rivalling the rest of their entire frame for size. Their helms were big -though that could simply be a side-affect of Starscream's explosive ego- and in the centre of their chassis's sat a mockery of a cockpit. 

Upon close inspection it was an empty bubble of glass - it couldn't open yet, thank Primus, he didn't want to imagine what sort of things a sparkling might decide to put in there- but it did seem ticklish, which offered hours entertainment during lazy mornings, once he as sure Starscream was out of the room. 

The sextuplets were also identical to one another in size and shape, much like many of this airforce were. Starscream claimed to be able to see differences in the angles of their wings and the shapes of their noses, but Megatron felt like he was exaggerating. Thankfully for them both, their sparklings had taken it upon themselves to split themselves into his and Starscream's colour schemes separately, so despite their likeness, all six where vastly different colours. 

Red, blue, white, grey, black, and the one odd ball whose coding appeared to have been indecisive, who was equally grey and blue. 

"Is there a reason they are so round?" Megatron asked, still coming to terms with the idea that he was their creator, and had made these clumsy, squashed, seeker-shaped lumps, as he watched them all fidget on their backs inside the floating crib pod they'd been loaded into. 

"It's so they bounce," Starscream explained, reaching in and stroking a long digit down their black sparkling's clear cockpit. She wriggled, stubby legs frog-kicking in protest. 

"You're not planning on dropping them, are you?" Megatron felt a twinge of concern. 

"They're seekers," Starscream said simply, then seemed to realise Megatron would have no idea what he meant by that as he clarified. "You'll need to come to terms with the fact that at some point, you're _going_ to drop them." 

Megatron scowled, struggling to hide his horror. "Speak for yourself-"

"It's a near surety," Starscream said evenly, "Look at them. You think they're going to become any less squirmy as they grow? They're designed to hit the ground without serious damage. They need to be familiar with the sensation of falling." 

Megatron didn't particularly want to accept that seeker sparklings were just 'designed to be dropped' by their negligent parents. They looked too delicate. Those little bubbles masquerading as cockpits were made of the smoothest, most luxuries glass Megatron had ever touched. He couldn't imagine for a moment that such a thing could survive a fall. 

"I will not drop them," he said stubbornly. 

"I won't hold it against you when you do." Starscream rolled his optics. "What are their names then?" 

Megatron blinked, "Excuse me?" 

"Their designations," Starscream scowled, turning way from the sparklings to look at him. "They need designations. We can't go around calling them 'Blue Sparkling', 'White Sparkling'-"

"I don't see why not," Megatron protested, feeling like Starscream was in too much of a rush. He had only just created their sparklings. Surely they needed more time to savour their emergence, grow to know and appreciate them all as individuals. 

"It's been two cycles, Megatron," Starscream reminded him with a hint of impatience. 

"And far too early for names," Megatron glared. 

In Tarn they had put a great deal of stock in a name. It was something most Cybertronian's carried with them into adulthood and Megatron wanted to do right by his daughters by ensuring they all had designations suitable enough to serve them in that purpose. At least until they were old enough to decide on names themselves. 

After discussing hypothetical names with Starscream during his carriage, he had come to learn that was not an attitude shared by the Vosians. 

But Starscream, much more agreeable in these early days in his role as a sire, didn't turn it into an argument. Something Megatron was grateful for. "At least give them something for us to identify them with." 

"Numbers then." 

Starscream's optic twitched, "Don't. You. _Dare_." 

Megatron stuck his chin up, "If it is so important to you, Starscream, then name them yourself." 

Starscream's expression soured further. "Happily, but it's your job. _You're_ the creator." 

"If you want me to respect your tradition in being the one to name our new-sparks, then respect mine in allowing me the appropriate length of time in coming to know them before I do." 

"And how long is that, Megatron?" 

"At least two centuries." 

Starscream threw his hands up as if Megatron was being the unreasonable one. "I will _not_ go around identifying my sparklings with 'hey you's' and pointing. They _have_ to be named." 

Megatron sighed wearily, and began to point, "Red, Blue-"

"You're not naming them colours!" 

"Their colours is all I know of them. Unless you'd rather I named them after what little I've seen of their personalities," Megatron pointed at the grey sparkling, "Which sadly means this one will be named 'Dribbler'." 

Starscream clutched at his head in frustration, "This is mortifying. I'll never live this down."

Megatron continued naming the new-sparks after his initial colour related suggestion. "White, Black, Grey, and," he paused at the duo-coloured grey and blue sparkling. She wriggled enthusiastically at the sight of his hand hovering over her. 

"Any suggestions?" He called to Starscream. 

Starscream looked over his shoulder with a frown, "We just had an entire argument about how _you're_ supposed to name them." 

"Fine," Megatron growled, then smirked with an idea. "Fusion." 

He felt Starscream stiffen. "Because of the two colours or-"

"After the fusion-cannon," Megatron lifted his newly reattached weapon high and gave it a fond pat, "The other great love in my life." 

Starscream made a noise of complete and utter disgust and left the room. Given that he could no more bear to be away from their sparklings than Megatron could, he was back within ten minutes, but he wasn't talking to his mate. 

"You don't approve of my names," Megatron teased him. 

"It's my own fault really," Starscream didn't rise to it, and instead shook his helm woefully. "For breeding with backwards Tarnish trash like you." 

Megatron smirked, and tickled Fusion until she laughed. 

* * *

  
Megatron had read that most carriers were back to normal life with little adjustment within a matter of days after an emergence, but he was beyond the limitations of _most_ carriers. The medics had seen to him during his post-emergence haze of pain and euphoria, and performed all manner of delicate repairs he didn't care to think too much on. 

He felt fresh welds pull occasionally as he walked, and found the lasting aftereffects of carrying such heavy robust cargo for so long had made him slower and weaker. For now. 

He was therefore keen to get back to normal duties, to throw himself onto some dangerous battlefield and re-hone his skills, quicken his mind, remind himself of what it was to be _**Megatron**_ , and not a soft-sparked, doting creator. Because he knew, had been warned by his informative readings, that the longer he waited to return to 'work', even if his lifestyle differed from the hypothetical desk jobs and admin work of the happy smiling creators in the data-files, the harder it would be to leave his little ones. 

"You're pulling that stupid face again." 

Megatron snapped his helm up, realising that he had indeed been 'pulling that stupid face' (as Starscream so aptly put it) as he'd leant over the side of the pod holding their sparklings. He had wanted to let them out and allow them the free reign to explore their quarters, but Starscream had mockingly reminded him that at three cycles old they could barely crawl. 

Megatron argued that they would never learn to if they were forever trapped in their floating pod prison. 

He also felt it rather ironic that whilst they had been inside him, these sparklings hadn't been able to _stop_ moving, yet now were perfectly willing to lie still and quiet in their pod. Brats, he thought fondly. 

"Will you cope in my absence?" He asked, dropping his gaze back down to his sparklings, unable to tear his gaze away from them for long. 

Starscream didn't answer immediately, and glancing upwards Megatron realised it was because the seeker was giving him a long hard look

"Will I cope?" He repeated. "For five minutes? Whilst you bully Hook into clearing you for warfare? Yes, I think I can manage." 

Megatron straightened to his full impressive height, "I don't need to bully Hook to be cleared." 

"You're still limping," Starscream threw out casually, crossing the room and leaning over the pod to steal their sparklings attention away for himself. Megatron felt a surge of jealousy well in him when they all started shifting their wings back and forth. White flipped over onto her front and moved them with such enthusiasm her entire body wriggled. 

Starscream reached in with a sigh and turned her over again. 

"It's taking you some time to leave," Starscream reminded him casually, glancing at him out of the corner of his optic. 

Megatron was about to suggest he take a few of them with him on this errand so they could see some of the ship, before realising how ridiculous that sounded even to his own audials. He needed to get a grip.

He took one step back, so the tiny bitlets in the pod were no longer visible, and steeled himself against the building affects of already being separated from them. 

"Off you go now," Starscream flapped a hand to shoo him. Refusing to accept that he was in any way compromised by his newfound creator-hood, Megatron slapped Starscream's wrist out of his face and stormed out of the room. 

He was only halfway to the repair-bay when he had to send Starscream an enquiring message to stop himself from performing a U-turn in the middle of the corridor. 

" _Status update?"_

 _"They're **recharging** , you great big marshmallow_!" 

Megatron deactivated his comm before he gave into the temptation to ask Starscream to send him a picture of them. 

* * *

  
Hook couldn't hide his surprise when Megatron shoved past Drag Strip and sealed the door to the repair-bay after him. 

"Sir," he bowed, more a bob of his head than a real show of deference, "I trust your repairs are holding well?" 

Megatron hadn't cared to check his repairs. The faint memories of the emergence process had been traumatic enough, he didn't need to relive it by taking a look at the recovering aftermath of it. He grunted noncommittally, coming to standing before Hook with his arms folded. "I am here to have you sign off on my recovery." 

Hook blinked. 

Megatron's glare hardened. "I can hardly reassume my duties in leading this faction to victory if my _so called_ command staff refuse to accept that I am fit for those responsibilities. Sign off on the paperwork." 

Hook seemed to shrink a little under his gaze. Not a good sign that getting his way as going to be easy. Megatron would rather not have to beat what he wanted out of him. Not with everything still so ... _sore_. 

"I would be happy to perform a full MOT to see where you are in your-"

"Recovered," Megatron snapped. "Where I _am_ is _recovered_. As you saw to the repairs yourself I hardly see why it's necessary to subject me to another one of your inspections." 

"The repairs were to the superficial damage only, my lord," Hook argued bravely. "My work can't be faulted, but most of the aftereffects of an emergence cannot be patched up as easily as -as a tear in your valvular mesh." 

Megatron refused to react to the unnecessary mention of his sorest part. He shifted his footing, widening his stance into something that conveyed authority and power. "Psychosomatic," he growled. "I feel no aftereffects." 

But Hook, losing all sense of self preservation, shook his helm. "My main body of skills may not necessarily lie in the complexities of reproduction, but I have a thorough understanding of what sort of stress a frame can cope with and the limitations of such. You're not ready for combat," he swallowed. "Sir." 

Megatron's optics flashed, "Is this insubordination?" 

Hook twitched, his faux confident veneer slipping, "As an older mech you can't expect yourself to spring back over night-"

"' _Older mech_ '," Megatron spat. "I've been hearing _that_ nonsense since before I was sparked. And contrary to your medical opinion, I have six strong, healthy sparklings in my quarters, when you and your kind all fretted and worried over the improbability of me creating even one."

Hook was silent, and unapologetic. 

With a snort of furious frustration Megatron jabbed the button for the door release. It opened on Drag Strip's surprised face. It seemed he had been eavesdropping.

Megatron paid him no mind, focusing back on Hook. "Just how long do you expect me to wait?!" 

With an audible swallow, Hook deflated, "A month-"

"Impossible." 

"Two weeks, at the minimum." Hook sighed, "but non-combative only." 

Megatron turned and left the room, his smirk hidden from the medic. The very moment he was cleared for duty, he and his fusion cannon were throwing themselves into the first conflict Soundwave could detect, medic's orders be damned.


	3. Chapter 3

It was fortunate his six daughters had been wise enough to present in such vastly different colours. Siblings, naturally, were alike, but these miniature seekers were taking the concept to an entirely new level, behaving something like a hive mind of disruptive behaviour. 

Six dark identical little faces stared at Megatron over the rim of their pod prison, their tiny fingers curled around the edge to hold themselves upright on their chubby little knees. Having failed to master walking in the seven cycles since they had emerged, but now keen on crawling everywhere they could fit, they dedicated ninety-five percent of their waking hours to squealing and wailing for him to release them from their plush little jail cell and allow them to roll around the hard decking of his quarters, wearing away the paint from their palms and knees with their non-stop explorations. 

A fact that had horrified their sire when he had seen what a day of adventure had done to once pristine paint-jobs. 

Sadly, with such a large, mischievous clutch, it was difficult for Megatron to allow them all out at once. They had small clever little fingers that seemed capable of getting into anything and everything, and he couldn't focus on rescuing one from electrocuting themselves with a power outlet without turning his back on another who was about to get into one of the many weapons cases Starscream had left laying around the room. 

Megatron really should order the seeker to put anything dangerous into storage, but the thought of sparkling-proofing their room might have been one step towards domestication too far. He would not be raising his daughters in a bubble. They would need to be worldly and resilient for the lives he had planned for them. For the lives this world offered. 

Despite his ambitions for them, and his conviction in not coddling his offspring, the thought of letting them loose about the room to bump, and dent, and scuff themselves simply required too much from him, too soon. 

When they were older, he reasoned to himself, hoping that tomorrow he might wake up to six competent teenagers, capable of risk assessment, following orders, and showing him an appropriate level of respect. 

Inside the pod, Grey blew a loud raspberry at him to get his attention. 

Megatron frowned in disapproval. He wished he could have said she was the most disrespectful of them. 

She triggered the usual event, and the hilarious noise of the raspberry was followed by a chorus of giggles and squeals, and then a round of raspberries from the rest of them, all performed with varying degrees of competency. And a generous amount of flying spittle. 

"Yes, very funny," he called to them, trying and failing to read a general update on the Hazmian crisis. He had been struggling over the first line for over an hour now. 

There was a series of light clangs as White began slapping her hands against the polished metal outside of the pod, unleashing a stream of unintelligible babble. It was a language understood only by her sisters, who true to form, copied her undesirable behaviour and all began bobbing up and down, rambling endlessly. 

Megatron set his data-pad down with a sigh. 

His daughters were far from stupid, they were observant and quick to learn, and at the sight of their creator giving up on his actual duty, they began wriggling and bouncing for the lions-share of his attention. Their wings flapped back and forth, and more than half of them ended up overbalancing in their enthusiasm and falling backwards against the pod's cushiony base. 

Megatron dropped to his knees before the pod so it was level with the lower half of his chest. Black and Blue were the only two still upright, but Blue was attempting to chew her sister's wing off, her little face twisted into a spooky mirror of Starscream's most psychotic expression. 

"I won't stand for Decepticon-on-Decepticon violence. Any more of this and you'll be in the brig," he admonished, tone much softer than he had intended. He carefully nudged them apart, accidentally knocking Blue over. He didn't feel a great deal of guilt, as thanks to their oversized wings his daughters were forever tipping over backwards and getting themselves stuck on their backs like electro-turtles anyway. It was something they were fairly accustomed too. 

And at least it meant they weren't bouncing up and down and squawking at him. 

The downside, of course, was that they didn't particularly enjoy being stuck on their backs. As Fusion proved to him, by releasing a long, high, ominous wail of displeasure. Her sisters looked to her, and quicker than Megatron could shush them, went off, one by one, wailing in the same shrill tone, a symphony of sympathetic sobbing. Even Black, the only sparkling still standing, screwed up her face and started. 

Megatron didn't fail to notice the six pairs of very dry optics. 

"A commendable effort," he praised gruffly, "But your acting needs work. I'm sure your sire would offer some of his tips." 

Nonetheless, he picked them up one-by-one and set them on their fronts, suppressing his unsympathetic smirk at the sight of them struggling upright with their stubby, uncoordinated limbs, pulling on one another's wings for leverage. There was another chorus of whining protests. Red managed to stand upright for one triumphant moment, before wobbling and landing aft first on her sister's head. 

Megatron quickly rectified the situation. 

It was hard to imagine that one day these lumpy, rounded sparklings would dominant the sky with all the grace and power of their sire - as tall, lean, slick, and sharp warriors - when now they rolled around before him as the exact opposite of such a thing. 

White looked up at him, her round face endearingly blank. The corner of Megatron lip quirked, and a smile split her face. Her fingers grabbed at the air in front of him. Foolishly, Megatron reached into the pod again, and was subsequently accosted by another five demanding seekerlets that wanted up. 

Megatron wondered if he could be reformatted into a frame with six arms. Then he could hold all six at once. Primus, he would be unstoppable. 

* * *

  
After just over a week with nothing to do but descend further into madness, Megatron left the sparklings with Starscream and stormed into Hook's between hours office, fully committing himself to the goal of leaving with an All Clear, or not leaving at all. 

Unfortunately, Hook was unexpectedly stubborn in the face of medical misconduct, and seemed to think he had a reputation to uphold anyway. Megatron threatened to beat him to scrap and retrieve his Approved For Duty paperwork from Scrapper instead, a mech with far more self-preservation than pride. But Hook pleasantly informed him that Soundwave had already foreseen him exploiting such a loophole, and wouldn't accept opinion from anyone but their chief medical officer. 

"Which is me," Hook finished, gesturing to himself, the strength in his voice contrasting with his pale-pink with fear optics and the desk he was making sure remained between himself and his unpredictable leader. "This wouldn't be so hard if you'd just take our advice-" 

"I've never taken the advice of self-serving cowards like you before, and I'm not going to start now!" Megatron thundered and punched Hook's desk. His fist made a huge dent in the metal. Hook blinked at it. 

"This is your last chance!" Megatron bellowed, pointing at him, "I am the rightful commander of this faction. You think something as petty as _paperwork_ will stop me from doing what I want?!" 

Hook's optics flicked up and down his frame. Megatron's pressure gauge started to climb- 

"You're listing."

" _What_?!"

Hook pointed, "To the left." He cleared his vocaliser. "You've pulled something-"

Megatron scoffed. "It's nothing-"

"A calliper out of alignment," Hook continued to diagnose him, stroking his chin and moving around the desk. "From rushing around the ship before everything locked back into place, I'm guessing."

Megatron shifted away from him, armour plates coming together defensively as he recalled the last time he allowed medics unmoderated access to his frame, during the emergence, when he had been too overwhelmed by pain to do anything about it. 

"...It won't take me more than a few minutes to tap it back into place." Hook paused, "Unless you would rather leave it? Jeopardising your chances of a swift recovery-?"

"You've made your point," Megatron snarled, turning swiftly to plant himself on the med-berth in the next room. "The calliper realignment and that is _all_." 

"Yes, sir," Hook nodded sharply.

* * *

That Megatron did feel better after Hook had seen to him did not improve his mood. He stormed through the ship, sending Decepticons flying out of his path. 

He arrived back in his quarters in record speed, barging into a scene that only exacerbated his frustration. 

Starscream had fallen into recharge on the floor, his back propped up against the end of the berth. It seemed he had left the sparklings out of the pod as they were currently clambering over him, but he was in a deep enough recharge not to notice.

Fusion was currently sat inside his cockpit, and was sobbing her little vocaliser dry, slamming her palms against the inside of the glass as Red and White played with the manual release for the canopy, repeatedly opening and closing it, but never long enough for her to get out. Grey sat on her sire's chest with her fist in her mouth, watching.

"What are you doing?!" Megatron bellowed. 

A chorus of squeals and alarm-beeps burst out of his sparkling's vocalisers. They fell off of Starscream and rolled to their escape as his shout jumped their sire awake. Starscream sat up, looking around in shock, until the repeated muffled banging of Fusion trapped inside his cockpit drew his attention. 

"What the-?" He released the cockpit and Fusion tumbled out into his waiting hands. 

"Can I not trust you to watch them for five minutes?!" Megatron thundered, taking Fusion out of his hands and setting her on the ground next to them. She rolled onto her hands and knees and clambered after her sisters. 

"You were gone over an hour," Starscream protested, brushing himself off and standing up. "How long does it take to bully Hook?"

Megatron didn't answer. The ensuring silence came with a wave of humiliation as Starscream's keen optics brightened and his helm tilted with interest. 

"I see," he purred quietly. "How exciting. Hook has a back-strut after all." 

Fire burned through Megatron's chest. " **What did you-?!** " he stopped mid-shout, centring himself and reigning in his temper as six pairs of optics peered out at him from the shadows under his berth. 

"What," he began again in a quieter, but more _incensed_ tone, "did you do? Bribe him? Blackmail him?" 

Starscream pursed his lips together smugly, "You'll never know." 

It struck Megatron then, the realisation slamming through his processor like punch to the side of the head, that this could be Starscream's greatest ploy yet, years in the making, using a patience and subtlety Megatron had never expected him capable of - beginning nearly a decade ago when he had first elegantly steered a conversation towards the prospect of reproducing, he and Megatron together, and ending with his once formidable leader retiring from the stress and hardships of warfare to dote on their precious little ones. All so their _selfish sire_ could play at being king of the world while the true conquer was distracted. 

Those mutinous thoughts must have been projected onto his expression, because when Starscream glanced back at him, he sighed. 

"Oh, don't be so melodramatic, Megatron," he dropped to his knees and reached under the berth, pulling their errant sparklings out, one by one, casually flipping them onto their backs so they couldn't retreat back into the darkness. "Bed-rest is not a life sentence. You can wait a few more days-"

"Days turn into weeks, into months, into years, and one cycle I'll look up and find you've taken my fleet, my rank, my _warship_ , all while I was busy playing carrier!" He pointed at his daughters, all of whom had been robbed of their dignity by their sire leaving them stuck on their backs. 

"I'm not going to say the thought has never crossed my mind," Starscream sat back on his heels and picked up the nearest sparkling, holding her up for Megatron to take and dump back in the pod. Red squirmed in Megatron's hands, reluctant to return to her prison. Megatron sympathised. 

"But," Starscream continued, passing him the next. "Maintaining a healthy relationship with the creator of my offspring would become much more difficult in the aftermath of a hostile takeover." He met Megatron's gaze from the floor, Grey dangling in their hands, suspended between them. 

"I'll have to wait for few more centuries yet I think, once you're even older and slower, and my daughters are grown enough to act as my personal guard to defend whatever retribution you might enact for my inevitable betrayal." He smiled lightly. 

Megatron scoffed, taking a good long look at Grey before lowering her into the dreaded pod with her sister. "And what a 'formidable' guard they would be," he muttered sarcastically. 

"I'll remember to tell them you said that when they're old enough to knock you on your oversized aft," Starscream glared. 

* * *

  
Megatron stood before the entrance to the tower, currently extended towards the water's surface some thousand metres above the base, watching the height indicator on the door panel turn left as the platform came down with it's cargo. 

The doors opened to the first patrol of seekers - his two highest ranking trines, some of them laughing and joking with one another, optics bright and vents clear from their joyous trip to the world above. The instant they saw him stood before them the laugher died off, the smiles disappeared. All save one. 

"How good of you to greet us back after a long and tiring patrol," Starscream stepped out with a purr. 

"Long and tiring," Megatron snorted, glaring at the other seekers slinking past Starscream and disappearing into the base's depths. "Weather reports indicated mild temperatures and a clear, cloudless sky." 

"It was windy," Starscream defended. 

"No it wasn't." 

"Weather conditions aside, I know what you're trying to get at, and the answer is 'no'." Starscream folded his arms and cocked a hip. "Wait until you've been cleared for duty." 

"This has nothing to do with duty!" A bark burst from Megatron's vocaliser, lifting Starscream's condescendingly arched brow another inch higher. "I have to a right to freedom of movement. I'm not a prisoner." 

"Yes, and whilst you're out there galavanting through flower fields and terrorising fleshling families on their weekend picnics, just who is going to be watching your daughters?" 

"Their sire," Megatron pinned him with a hard look. 

"Their _sire_ ," Starscream exaggerated the pronunciation of the word. "Is going to be busy watching his once noble, but foolish leader stomp around a muddy field all afternoon because he can't be trusted not to find himself _accidentally_ wandering into Autobot territory and getting into a skirmish." 

"Are trying to imply I'm so inept I can't be trusted to keep a safe distance from Autobot attackers?" 

"No, Megatron," Starscream sighed, exasperated, treating Megatron as though he was another unruly infant he had to deal with. "I'm implying that you would do it on purpose, to prove some idiotic point about being an unstoppable force never to be underestimated." 

Megatron mulled his words over. "If you're insisting on accompanying me, I can accept those terms." 

Starscream blinked, "No, _no_ , that's not what I said. I said you can't leave because we'd be leaving the sparklings unattended." 

"There are other mechs perfectly capable of watching a pod full of recharging seekers." 

Starscream's optics narrowed. "Name one." 

Megatron glared at him. As the silence dragged out between them Starscream made a show of checking his external chrono. 

"Soundwave." Megatron finally arrived at an answer. 

"Yes Soundwave," Starscream agreed. "We'll add six defenceless sparklings to his menagerie of misfit ex-convicts." 

"If he can manage the likes of Rumble," Megatron began. 

"Those sawed off lunatics are _why_ we can't leave them with Soundwave." Starscream dropped the passive sarcasm. "He'll turn his back on the pod for half a second and those evil gremlins will snatch up one of our daughters sell them to Swindle! Is that what you want?!"

That was highly improbable. No Decepticon would dare cross him, and what would Swindle even do with a seeker sparkling?! There couldn't possibly be a market for stolen Cybertronians on Earth. But the more he thought about it, the less higher thought was playing a part in his decisIon making. His nerves began to dwindle. 

He met Starscream's smug face, and decided if he could not bring himself to trust any other living being with the welfare of his daughters-

"They'll have to come with us then," he nodded, and turned around after watching the smirk slip off Starscream's face. 

"Take them-?"

"To the surface," Megatron gestured pompously, the idea sounding more and more appealing the more it came together in his mind. "It will be a grand day out for them-"

"Among the _humans_?!" Starscream demanded shrilly. Megatron could hear his heels clacking on the decking as he quickened his pace. "Amongst the organic filth?! To do what?! Catch a rust infection? Get stolen by a hungry bear?!" 

"No bear will be eating my daughters on our watch," Megatron half turned and lifted an arm, inviting Starscream to walk beside him. 

Starscream slipped under his arm, dodged his attempt at a one-armed embrace and stood in front of Megatron to block his path. Megatron continued walking anyway, forcing Starscream to scramble backwards, tripping over his own heels to avoid being bowled over. 

"There's no point in putting them at risk," Starscream argued, "there's nothing for them up there. They can't fly and they would get themselves _dirty_!" 

"Primus forbid." 

Hands clapped to his chest, the force behind them finally slowing his advance. He peered down at Starscream's indignantly flushed face. "It's a bad idea, and you know it." 

There was one last thing in Megatron's arsenal, and if it didn't work, he might as well settle in for another boring week trapped in the underwater base.

"They have never seen the sky," he reminded Starscream. 

Starscream's optics shuttered, his hands falling away.

"...Ten minutes," He ground out. "And Thundercracker and Skywarp come." 

"What good will that do?" 

"There'll be someone for me to talk to who isn't _you_." 

* * *

  
Starscream refused to let anyone go anywhere until a thorough risk assessment had been completed, something he, Soundwave, and Shockwave deliberated on together. After three hours of waiting, they came to what Megatron had already assumed himself (without the need for a _committee_ , thank you very much) that anywhere they took the sparklings had to be void of intelligent organic life. 

Starscream had made the obligatory jokes about no organic life qualifying as intelligent, and after a further half hour spent arguing over which of the planet's native inhabitants were and were not capable of picking up a seekerlet in their teeth and carrying them off into the wilderness, a location was decided; a small duck pond in an relatively uninhabited portion of Kentucky. 

Megatron was then forced to wait another two hours for Soundwave to complete a full security sweep of the area for any humans that could potentially be slinking around in the undergrowth. By the time his command staff were finally somewhere near to satisfaction with the outing, it was late afternoon, and nearing sundown. 

"Well it's hardly worth going now," Starscream claimed. "Perhaps we'll save it for tomorrow." 

Fully aware that being made to wait around all cycle was part of Starscream's evil plot to delay the inevitable, Megatron ignored him, and began stalking towards the tower anyway, the sparkling pod carrying his daughters floating after him, now programmed to remain within a certain distant of his EM field. 

"Nice try," He grunted. 

The pod was incapable of flying at altitude, so Starscream and his trine unloaded them and secured them two apiece into their cockpits, something that distressed the previously traumatised Fusion greatly. Megatron sealed Thundercracker's cockpit on her screwed up face before the sounds of her squealing set her sisters off. Black, who was sharing the cockpit with her and would be forced to endure the crying for the duration of the flight, merely glared through the glass at her creator, blaming him for every inconvenience that had so far befallen her in her short life. 

They took off, flying low to avoid the detection of human radar systems. As they passed the shoreline, taking the scenic route across land to avoid the cities and populated urbanised areas, Starscream opened the comm frequency between them. Megatron was ready to roll his optics at whatever complaints were about to come his way, when instead of his Air Commander's shrill nasally noise, came the soft, excited coos of sparklings. 

Megatron listened to the sounds of them laughing and clapping, and struggled to remain outwardly stoic when Starscream slowed out of his lead position in their formation and rolled onto his side next to Megatron, displaying the sparklings bouncing around through the glass of his canopy. 

Blasted seeker was deliberately trying to compromise him. 

They flew over lusciously green trees and fields, passing a small green-tinged body of water, occupied by water-favouring avians Megatron had to assume were the ducks they had come to bother. He was glad to see how small and defenceless they were, meaning they weren't likely to poise any threat to his sparklings. Starscream turned softly and led them into a gradual descent. 

They landed in the grass next to the pond, scarring some of the birds away. They flew into the air with a whistle of wind under their wings and a flurry of feathers. Starscream snapped his head in Skywarp's direction. "You're scarring away the ducks!" 

The screech of his voice sent another half of the flock fleeing. 

"Oh, _I'm_ scaring them?" Skywarp argued. 

"Silence," Megatron snapped. "Before you run them all off." 

Starscream gestured to his trine to release their cargo, and cockpits lifted with hisses and clicks to expose the sparklings to the outside air. Curious beeps filled the quiet of the pond, but it was nothing to run the remaining wildlife off. Megatron watched attentively as Skywarp knelt and began to remove the seekerlets from his cockpit, sitting them gently in the grass. Thundercracker followed, doing the same. 

When Starscream went to set down his own passengers, White crawled off at a near sprint, keen to drown herself in the pond. Megatron marched over to scoop her up. In contrast to her eagerness, Blue squirmed and screeched when Starscream tried to set her down, panicking at the foreign feel of grass tickling her armour. 

"Fragging coward," Starscream muttered, giving up and straightening with her still in his arms.

"Takes after you, Screamer," Skywarp muttered, reach a hand towards the pond and clicking his fingers. "Here ducky-duckies!" 

"What are you doing, Skywarp?" Thundecracker asked blandly. 

"I'm trying to them get them close enough to pet," he smiled at Grey and Red sitting between his pedes, blinking at the water cluelessly. "You wanna pet the duckies?" 

"No petting," Megatron glared, moving toward the edge of the pond to better assess any potential danger. "They may bite." 

"Ducks," came Starscream's bored, judgmental voice, "do not have _teeth_."'

Megatron ignored him, eyeing their deadly beaks. 

Soon enough, as his sparklings got over the shock of being outside in the dangerous wilderness of a duck pond, they began to show more interest in the birds as they swam back and forth across the water's surface, quaking and shaking their tail feathers back and forth. Red pointed at the brown bird approaching the water's edge, and Megatron took a step forward, ready to scare it away. 

Grey ripped up a handful of grass and threw it clumsily towards the water, her wings perking up high in interest when the duck swam towards the floating grass and began to peck at it. 

Watching the tranquil scene unfolding before him, Megatron felt his defensive protocols begin to deactivate one-by-one, his shoulders slumping, armour loosening. He had not been aware of his own heightened stress until taking a deep breath and releasing it. As unflappable as he had been as a warrior, when it come to matters concerning his young, he might have lost his nerve. 

To further drive that realisation home, the reeds next to where Skywarp and his sparklings were sat rustled, and something large and white drifted out, five times the size of a duck, with a long periscope-like neck. It spread it's large wings out and flapped, causing his daughters to flinch.

Megatron powered up and thrust out his fusion cannon in a beat, the glowing barrel flooding the white bird in neon purple. The bird shook it feathers out indignantly turned around, swimming back across to the other side of the pond, fairly unflustered by the advanced Cybertronian super-weapon getting thrust into it's face.

Megatron straightened up and powered the fusion cannon down. Nine pairs of optics blinked at him. 

"What?!" He snapped, sick of being surrounded by judgmental seekers. Even his own daughters, as small, as they were, were already starting to pick up unfavourable flight-frame mannerisms. 

"Megatron," Starscream began, sounding weary. 

"I was defending the sparklings," Megatron snapped before he could even start. 

"Yes, thank Primus," Starscream said tonelessly, "It could have killed us all." 

"I'm going for a walk," Megatron twisted away before he said or did something he regretted in front of his daughters. Like a duck massacre. Or a seeker one. 

"It's nearing sunset," Starscream called after him, "don't wander-"

"I'll wander wherever I please!" Megatron bellowed at him, voice booming and scarring off the last and the very bravest birds, leaving the pond empty. He ignored the mournful sounds of disappointment from his daughters and disappeared into the trees, needing a moment to recollect himself. 

He brought up some of the files he had saved from his data-pads on creatorhood. He hadn't bothered to read much past the carrying and the emergence process. Those chapters had made no mention of subconscious protocols potentially disturbing his emotional outputs after the sparklings had arrived. 

Perhaps they needed deactivating. He would not be taken seriously if he retuned to command only to find his every waking thought occupied with his daughters. They were still so small, and would remain so for a great many years yet. The thought of parting from them for so many hours of the day sent his spark sinking into the depths of his tanks, but the idea of taking a step back from the war _he_ had started was intolerable. 

The datafile gave him no answers. Whoever had written it clearly hadn't had the dilemmas warlords faced in mind. 

The sky was beginning to darken, and realising how much time had passed Megatron wondered why Starscream hadn't sent one of his trine to come and hurry him out of the forest to drag them all back to base. Perhaps they thought it safer to allow him time to wallow. 

He began to trudge back the way he came, glancing up at the orange-pink sky with appreciation. It would be another week at least before he could glimpse the planet's ever changing sky. He stepped out into the clearing where the pond sat, and brought his gaze back down. 

Instead of sitting around the pond waiting for him, the three seekers were stood together in a huddle, their wing's hanging as low as they possibly could on their backs. Even in the growing darkness Megatron could see the fear on their faces. Starscream turned to look at him, Blue clutched close to his chest. 

Megatron's optics tracked to the Thundercracker and Skywarp, each holding two sparklings themselves. 

Basic maths had already spelled the problem out for him, but his spark didn't drop through the bottom of it's chamber until Starscream swallowed and said, "We lost one."


	4. Chapter 4

The sudden spike in Decepticon activity around Kentucky did not go unnoticed by Autobot intelligence. 

Their enemies seemed to wander around a specific, seemingly unimportant, piece of unoccupied land for some hours, with several seeker trines flying back and forth over the area. There was no particular motive identifiable for their actions. They kept their distance from any human settlements and didn't bring any world-ending equipment with them, and no reports came in from the local authorities about giant aliens casing a ruckus. 

There was some discussion around whether they were searching for something, but seeing as there was no obvious intent to cause harm, Optimus decided it would be in everyone's best interests to simply let them be and carry on with their bizarre staggered faction outing. 

But advised the evening shift to keep an optic on it. 

When a another half hour passed, after the Decepticons had appeared to have retreated from the area, Red Alert sprang out of his seat at the monitor station and raced to tell Optimus in a frantic, breathless rush that "Deceptihighcommanwasjuspottedlandinthearea!" 

Which, even with all the advanced translating software available to Optimus, made no sense. 

"Repeat that with the proper enunciation," Prowl admonished him impatiently. 

What Red had been _trying_ to say was that Decepticon High Command had just arrived in the area of the interest. And though Optimus could ignore a few seekers milling about an uninhabited area, _Megatron_ had not been seen in some months. To the point where they had been beginning to suspect he was no longer on planet. They might have assumed Starscream had finally managed to oust him as leader had there not been a distinct lack of seekers declaring themselves Master of the Universe in the mean time. 

Whatever had brought Megatron out of hiding had to be important. Whatever his intentions, his presence couldn't be ignored. Lives could be at risk. 

After a speedy drive, it was twilight when they left the single lane rural road and made their bumpy way through the thickening foliage. They were forced to transform before long, and winced at every snapped twig under foot, sending a frantic rustle through the bushes and echoing screeching from the wildlife they were disturbing. Stealth came much easier to them on less occupied planets. 

"Can't these Con's just do this kinda slag at a decent hour?" Ironhide grunted behind Optimus, sounding like he'd just stepped in something unpleasant and moist in the darkness. 

"Bluestreak," Optimus called his sharpshooter forward, reluctant to obliviously wander straight into the middle of a Decepticon plot in the dark. "Do you see anything?" 

Bluestreak -mercifully aware that their mission required an element of quiet and had so far managed to curb his incessant need to chatter- lifted his rifle and looked through the scope, carefully scanning the area ahead. When he switched between infrared and heat vision, his weapon twitched in his hand. "Huh." 

Optimus crouched next to him, trying to see through the trees with his optics alone. "What is it?" 

Bluestreak adjusted the scope and took another look. "I think ...I think there's a sparkling."

Optimus blinked. 

"Probably dirt on the lens," Ironhide grumbled, grabbing the barrel of the weapon and tilting it up to see. "It's filthy around here." 

"Hey!" 

"A sparkling?" Optimus was shaking his head, squinting through the dark. "...Must have been a malfunction on the scope," he tried to explain away, though unlike Ironhide wanting to be a little more tactful than openly accusing Bluestreak of failing to maintain his weapon. "A Decepticon that appeared smaller from far away..." 

Bluestreak subtly twisted his rifle out of Ironhide's hands and swung it around, searching again. He didn't find anything, because he lowered it with a frown. "No, I could have sworn-"

"See," Ironhide clapped his hands together, dusting them off, "Dirt." 

"Dirt? Glowing red with thermal radiation? In a seeker-sparkling shape? Seems unlikely, _sir_ ," Bluestreak argued with rare levels of sass. "I know what I saw, I know what sparklings look like, I even saw one in real life once-!" 

Ironhide snorted. "Musta been a mutated squirrel. More likely than you seeing a _sparkling_ wandering around an organic forest-" 

"I'd take that bet," Bluestreak propped his rifle against his shoulder. "My monitor duty for the next month if I'm right." 

Ironhide scoffed loudly. 

Optimus's audials focused past their voices and into the quiet of the forest- to the rustle of leaves in the light wind and chirp of insects in the undergrowth. He heightened the sensitivity on them as far as they could go.

Snap.

A tree branch. He lifted a hand. Behind him Ironhide and Bluestreak fell instantly silent, staring in the direction he faced. 

Optimus unholstered his blaster. Behind him he heard soft clicks and snaps as Ironhide and Bluestreak cocked their weapons. 

There was another _snap_ , closer this time. And shuffling noises -from something small, like a mammal in the grass. There was no one in front of them. No red glow of menacing optics glaring out from the dark depths of the forest. 

Then, a soft tweeting _beep_. Not a bird. Distinctly Cybertronian. Unquestionably a sparkling. 

Optimus holstered his blaster quickly, optics blown wide as he searched the area in front of him desperately for a tiny metal frame. Ironhide began to curse, indignantly shushing Bluestreak's pressing mutters of 'I told you so!' 

"Find it," Optimus ordered, dropping into a crouch and running his fingers through the dense layer of twigs and rotten leaves. "Take care where you tread." 

"Enjoy my monitor duty, sir." Bluestreak whispered smugly. 

"Shut up, kid, I didn't shake on that." 

They spent ten minutes on their hands and knees in the dark, searching the ground, following the soft sounds. Ironhide whistled gently to illicit a response from it, while Bluestreak did his best to mimic the summoning tones of an adult seeker. 

"How you we know this isn't a trap?" A frustrated Ironhide sat back on his heels and complained, rubbing his aching back where he had been bent over for longer than his spinal agreed with. "How do we know this wasn't what the Cons were planning all along? They mighta come out here to hide speakers to play that noise? They could be luring us on a wild cyber-goose chase?" 

"I _saw_ it!" Bluestreak argued. 

"I don't doubt this had something to do with the Decepticon presence in the area," Optimus agreed with Ironhide, "but I do believe the sparkling exists and needs our help." 

To add to the magnitude of their search, the beeps of the missing sparkling were starting to get further way, sounding sadder and weaker. 

"We can't just leave it out here!" Bluestreak implored. "Even if it is a Decepticon." 

"I know," Optimus rose to his pedes with a sigh. "We'll need reinforcements." 

* * *

  
" _What_ ," Megatron began slowly, struggling to cool the rising pressure of his inevitable eruption. "Do you mean _lost_?!"

"You know what I mean!" Starscream hissed shrilly. His fear always worked as good fuel for his fierce temper, and he immediately denied all fault and started pointing fingers. Namely at the easiest target. Skywarp. 

"Skywarp took his optics off her!" 

"Hey!" Skywarp turned red. "This wasn't my fault! _You_ were watching her!" 

"I was watching _you_!" Starscream shouted, "because you were distracting me! Throwing rocks at the stupid ducks-!"

"You're their fragging sire, Starscream! How's this supposed to be my fault?!" 

"You're part of this trine, aren't you?! They're not just mine, they're all of ours!" 

"That's not what you said when I wanted to see them the other day!" 

Thundercracker subtly closed his hands around the audials of the sparklings he was carrying; Red and White, to save their delicate little audio sensors from the shrill shouting and the coarseness of the words they were starting to use. Skywarp had Grey and Fusion dangling from one arm each, and Starscream had a confused Blue balanced on his shoulders. It meant, by process of elimination, It was Black who was missing. 

In the forest. At night. 

Megatron could barely summon the words to berate them. The _worst possible_ sparkling to have lost. The one that would be the near impossible to see at night. They could be right on top of her and never see her. 

He realised he'd been clutching his head, breathing raggedly as his fuel pump beat faster, climbing and climbing. He let them drop and stared at his shaking hands. When had his hands ever shaken before?! When had he _ever_ felt such visceral fear? He looked up, and the seekers were staring at him. 

"What are you doing?" He hissed, the shaking feeling lodged in his throat, straining his vocaliser. " _Find_ her!" 

She can't have gotten far, he reasoned to himself, ignoring the seekers frantically juggling sparklings between themselves and activating comm links and leaping into the forest screeching 'Black!' At the top of their voices. She could not fly, she could not even walk. Granted, she was one of the quickest crawlers, and was adept at rolling away. But she could not have gone far. 

How big was this planet anyway?

"This is why you _name_ sparklings!" Starscream shouted at him from the tree line. Blue was now dangling from her scruff bar in a tree branch next to him, where he can obviously placed her to free up his hands. "So they know you're talking to them when you shout their names!" 

" _Black!_?" Skywarp screeched in the distance. 

"She does knows she's black though, that we're calling her," Thundercracker offered lamely. 

"She's a _week old_ , Thundercracker, she can't differentiate between colours and she's never seen a mirror!" 

Megatron dropped his face into his hands in despair, automatically searching for Soundwave's frequency on his comm link. He typed out his plea for help in text, because he couldn't quite trust himself to speak yet. 

_Sparkling; AWOL. Assistance required immediately. Bring all available crew._

And Primus, if some idiot stepped on her he was going to kill every Decepticon on this planet. Starting with his useless Second In Command. 

* * *

  
"What are we searching for again?" Sideswipe asked, face crinkled in confusion. 

It was dark now, the only visiblity provided from the half moon casting a silver light across the tops of the trees. Little of it reached them beneath the canopy, but headlights provided with them with enough light to see each other by. 

"A sparkling," Optimus answered. 

"No, but seriously," Sideswipe joked. 

"He _is_ serious," Ironhide growled, pointing to his mud-caked knee joints. "What do you think we've been doing out here for the last two hours? Stargazing?!" 

"Decepticon?" Jazz asked evenly, but there was a hint of surprise to his voice. 

"Decepticon seeker." 

Jazz shrugged, "That's less surprising. So what's the plan?" 

"We need to set up a search perimeter," Prowl stepped back and beginning to point. "Assuming the missing individual has developed enough to walk, we'll begin with a three mile radius-"

"Or! We could just call it over?" Jazz's interrupted to suggests. "If it can walk, I mean." 

"We've tried that," Ironhide said impatiently. 

Jazz ignored him though, grinning at Prowl, "Whoop your sirens." 

Prowl's arms tightened across his chest. "Ex _cuse_ me?" 

"It's a high frequency!" Jazz protested. "You know what a jet engine sounds like? That awful screeching noise-"

"That'd scare the scrap out of them," Sideswipe protested. "They won't come near us if we start setting off alarms-"

"I dunno, I think Jazz is onto something," Bluestreak nudged Prowl gently, "Give it a try, they might think it's their carrier calling for them?"

"They're probably used to that kinda noise anyway," Sideswipe started to joke. "What, with living with Screamer."

"Living with _all_ of them," Jazz said firmly. "Give it a try, Prowler, use the sirens-"

"There are enemy soldiers in our vicinity," Optimus reminded him sensibly, thinking it was more likely they'd call _Megatron_ to them than they would the sparkling.

"Soldiers looking for their sparkling," Jazz pointed out. 

"From the circumstances I would say it was more likely they were abandoning it," Prowl's lip curled. 

It was a harsh judgment to make, even for Prowl. But there was a logic to it. It was late, and the Decepticons had few allies on this planet. Bringing a defenceless sparkling out into the woods at twilight was negligent parenting at best. 

Optimus pinched the bridge of his nose. "We can assess the motivations of this sparkling's parents after we have rescued an innocent life from a night freezing alone." 

"It's August, sir," Bluestreak reminded him. 

"Seekers don't retain heat outside of flight," Ironhide said, rather more well informed on the subject than anyone had been expecting. Sideswipe raised a curious brow behind him. 

"So it's decided," Jazz clapped Prowl on the back. "Whoop away, man." 

Prowl pinned him with a hateful look, his shoulders hunched and fists clenched, before whooping his siren, long and loud, blue lights briefly illuminating the trees. 

Silence reigned in the beat afterwards, until an inquisitive answering _beep_ sounded somewhere to their right. Optimus took off in that direction, hastily but cautious. He could already hear Jazz calling Prowl the Seeker Whisperer. 

Optimus came to stand over a seemingly unoccupied patch of ground, and had a little vocaliser not beeped out a noise at him, he never would had spotted the two tiny red optics peering up at him between his pedes. He took two rapid steps back, blinking in surprise. Now that he knew the sparkling was there, he could see her. Jet black, from wing to toe, a tiny swell of mirrored black glass acting as a cockpit. 

Optimus crouched and extended a finger. A midnight black hand closed around it. 

"We've found her," he called to his Autobots. 

She stared up at his masked face with an expression of wariness. Optimus allowed it to fold away so she could see his smile. She matched it, wriggling on her back. With her wings so large and oversized, she appeared to be having trouble turning over. 

He picked her up, amazed at how light she was, like her struts were as hollow as a bird's bones. 

"I think we ought to have words with whoever was meant to be watching you, hadn't we?" 

She squirmed happily in his hands, sticking her tongue past her lips to blow an enthusiastic raspberry. 

"My thoughts exactly," Optimus agreed, closing his face mask and turning to rejoin his Autobots. 

* * *

Once Soundwave finally arrived the first thing he did was try to cajole Megatron into Astrotrain's safe and warm interior under the guise of discussing their next course of action in relative privacy. Megatron got two steps up the boarding ramp before spotting it as his Third in Command's tactless attempt at removing him from the stressful situation and stormed off in a huff. 

When the sparklings present and accounted for were loaded into Astrotrain to be taken back to the base, Soundwave once again used his manipulative wiles and Megatron's compromised attachment to them to try and convince him to go with them. 

But Megatron would not sit in the warmth and quiet of his quarters while one of his daughters was missing out in the hellish darkness of this primitive planet, at the mercy of bears, and wolves, and dragons, and _ducks_. 

"Lord Megatron," Soundwave's reverent drone had somehow become condescending. "You have not been cleared for duty. Soundwave; would be remiss in allowing you-"

" _Allowing_ me?!" Megatron barked, and a sudden rush of nocturnal birds shot out of trees and took to the air in fright. "I won't tolerate this farce any longer. I am _taking_ command and leading this search mission whether you recognise my authority or not!" 

Soundwave's visor glowed steadily. "I must advise caution-"

"Caution from what?!" Megatron spat. "The birds? Insects? Nothing here can hurt me." 

He ignored the little voice that reminded him he had just hours ago tried to shoot a swan for flapping it's wings near his daughters. He shook his head, feeling ridiculous. "Have you set up a perimeter?" 

"Negative," Soundwave's helm turned towards the distant forest. "Autobots; have entered the vicinity of the search area." 

Megatron's fuel pump began to pick up speed again. Of all the- " _Autobots_?" 

Soundwave took a step towards him, "Remain calm-"

"I am calm!" Megatron snarled, twisting around in search of his second, needing someone else to shout at. Someone more expressive that wouldn't make him feel like he was overreacting. "Where is Starscream?! _Starscream_?!" 

"Commander Starscream is leading the aerial search." 

"What about the Autobots?" Megatron grimaced, nausea swirling through his systems and making him feel light headed. Luck was never on his side in these matters. And Prime had a hateful knack of always managing to outmanoeuvre him. If he was aware there was a missing, helpless Decepticon in the vicinity, chances were-

He rubbed his temples. No. He was being ridiculous. Prime was a soft mech with an impractical, Old-World Code Of Honour. Black would not come to harm under his watch, if she _were_ stupid enough to go to them. 

And thinking of the seeker who _sired her_ there was a good chance she had gone to him. Starscream also never knew when to keep his distance from an Autobot. It was their bright colours, drew seekers in like magpies after silver. 

Soundwave was watching him, waiting for further instructions. 

"Contact Prime," He ordered. " _Quietly_. Find out what he knows. He may be of some use." 

"If Prime is aware of the situation," Soundwave began.

Megatron couldn't believe he was going to say this, but creatorhood had overpowered saner mechs than he in the past. "Then _invite_ him to join the search effort," he snarled through gritted denta. "And tell him he would be graciously rewarded." 

Starscream wouldn't be pleased, but he wasn't in charge anymore, and the more optics searching the forest floor the better. He was finding his daughter, whatever advantages he had to give away to Prime to make it happen. 

* * *

  
"Well, no wonder it took so long to find her," Ironhide muttered, leaning around Optimus to peer at the little frame resting in the crook of his leader's arm. 

The black sparkling stared up at the crowd of blue optic'd strangers with an open mouthed stare, her little hands resting atop each other over the black mirrored cockpit. From a distance, it would have appeared as though a black seeker-shaped hole had manifested across Optimus chest she was so dark. Her matt finish meant there was minimal reflection from the Autobot headlights and the faint glow of the moon on her armour. Only her shiny cockpit and glowing optics stood out in the void of light she created. 

"A black seeker," Bluestreak wondered to himself, scratching his head thoughtfully. "I thought seekers were bright and colourful? Where'd she even pick up this colour palette?" 

"Maybe they painted her black?" Sideswipe suggested. "To make her harder to see?" 

"You can't repaint sparklings until they're at least a decade old," Bluestreak claimed, with more surety over the matter than Optimus suspected had a right to. "They lick off the paint."

"Only if you don't watch them-"

"How many sparklings have _you_ repainted, Sides?" 

Bringing his chattiest Autobots had been a mistake, Optimus realised with a sigh, turning his back on the bickering pair to save his cargo's delicate audials from the noise. Her optical shutters had half-fallen to cover round crimson orbs, appearing briefly between slow, exhausted blinks. She must be worn out. 

There was a smudge of dirt across her nasal ridge and Optimus lifted a thumb to swipe it away, his hand dwarfing her face. She crinkled her nose and scowled at the touch, her expression transmuting into something ghostly familiar.

He leaned in, curious.

He caught himself staring when his comm suddenly emitted a warning tone. His shifted his attention away from the sparkling he had barely had time to decide what to _do with_ to check the incoming frequency. It was unrecognised and encrypted - but he didn't have to guess as to who it would be. 

As he ran security software to ensure nothing unpleasant was being transmitted over as he handed the sparkling over to Ironhide, ignoring gruff protests about not knowing how to hold her. The comm pinged positivity and Optimus sighed as he waited for the streams of technical jargon to finish rolling through his HUD. 

And finally. 

" _Prime_." Soundwave's menacing intone vibrated through his helm. 

"You Decepticons are out camping late tonight, are you?" Optimus joked, absently wondering if it was cruel to tease when it was entirely possibly there were two very worried mecha further into the forest. 

" _What is the purpose of your presence in this area?"_

Soundwve was normally more subtle than this. 

"A sudden influx in suspicious activity." Optimus answered honestly. "Where is Megatron? I am surprised he's not making this call personally, given how long it has been since he last had the opportunity to threaten me." 

Soundwave didn't answer, and in the pause, Optimus's moral sensibilities started flaring up. He glanced at Ironhide holding the sparkling awkwardly, looking at him with pleading optics as Jazz played peak-a-boo with an utterly indifferent Decepticon audience. 

"Was it just the _one_ sparklings you lost?" he asked, getting some satisfaction out of the wordless note that erupted across the comm channel. 

There was a click as the line was muted on the other end. Optimus was left pacing back and forth, trampling the undergrowth as he waited for a response. Finally it clicked back on.

" _Coordinates for prisoner exchange are incoming_."

Optimus felt an uncomfortable crawling sensation under his armour at the sparkling being referred to as a 'prisoner'. He certainly hadn't rescued her with the intention of holding her hostage. But would he be unbearably foolish to simply hand her back without attempting to broker some sort of ...he would rather call it a favour, than a ransom.

"When?" He asked. 

" _As soon as possible."_ Soundwave demanded. " _Is the prisoner unharmed?"_

Optimus glanced at her blinking tiredly, turning her frowning face away from Jazz's smile. "Dirty and tired."

Soundwave made an accepting noise. " _Command staff only. For the sake of the prisoner's wellbeing this information is not to be shared."_

Optimus wondered how he was going to keep _Bluestreak_ of all mechs from telling everyone he had ever met about the lost Decepticon sparkling in the woods. But that could be a worry for another cycle. He agreed and let Soundwave hang up, before turning and finding Prowl stood directly behind him. He hadn't heard him approach. 

"They're asking for her back," Prowl guessed, ignoring Optimus's flinch of surprise. 

Even with a battle-mask covering two thirds of his face Optimus couldn't hide his expression from the perceptive tactician. "We're not kidnappers." 

"This is an example of gross negligence on their part," Prowl frowned. "If the Decepticons are now reproducing to increase their numbers-"

"Then it would be impractical to use a method that required such time, energy and resources. We're talking about a sparkling can't yet roll off her back, not newly reanimated Stunticons." Optimus reminded him firmly. "It would be millennia before she was capable of fighting in her parent's war-"

"Millennias creep up on us faster than we realise," Prowl reminded him resentfully. 

"I plan to reserve judgment, for now," Optimus decided, just as the coordinates for the exchange came through. He perused them absently. "Bring Jazz and the sparkling, tell the others to fall back to the road. We shall see what Megatron has to say for himself." 

"You think this is his plot?" Prowl's optics sharpened as his processor began to work. 

Optimus smirked behind the mask . "I think this is his sparkling." 

* * *

At the top of the hill, looking out across the silver tops of trees under the pale moonlight, Megatron stood apart from Soundwave and Starscream, counting his invents as he tried to regulate them into something more manageable. 

He had often wondered in his youth -during bouts of starvation, imprisonment, and slavery- if his spark had been cursed. That, no matter what his intentions, he doomed to fall short of all his endeavours. He had incited violence when he had tried for hope. He had promised freedom and prosperity and then trapped his followers in a barren war that lasted lifetimes. And now it appeared even the simplest, most natural of tasks were beyond him. 

He had once feared he would be an apathetic parent, that the unresolved issues of his past would lead to a detached relationship with his daughters. But now it seemed the opposite was true. He could barely find clear a space in his head to think straight, his mind always occupied with a thousand worries and insecurities. This ordeal had stolen his resolve, and stood on the hill, waiting for Prime to appear with his stolen sparkling, he felt like a helpless miner again. 

Starscream cleared his vocaliser next to him. Megatron didn't acknowledge him. 

"I know I've been teasing you for months and that it's probably been the opposite of helpful in terms of your waning mental health-" Starscream began anyway. 

"Waning _what_?" Megatron snarled, baring his denta. 

Starscream clasped his hands behind his back and tipped his head back to look up at the stars. "Again, I'm _joking_." A small sly smile crossed his face. "You're not a bad creator." 

"Because you're an authority on these things," Megatron growled. "One week into sire-hood and your foolish actions have already led to the captor of our young." 

Starscream was unaffected by that brash reminder. He stepped closer to Megatron and leaned against his arm, trying to prompt him into putting it around him. Probably. He didn't deserve it. Megatron stepped away. 

"I'm not a bad sire," Starscream told him, without a hint of self-doubt, and Megatron envied his undeserved confidence. "And you're not a bad creator. It's only our first week on the job." 

Megatron glared at the stars stonily. 

"What you're going through," Starscream began again, in a different tone this time. A quieter one. "...Is normal." 

"And what's that?!" Megatron snapped. 

Starscream's hand squeezed his forearm. "I think you know what I'm talking about." 

Megatron wanted to yank his arm out of Starscream's grip, but the energy just wasn't there. For all his bluster about razing this world to the ground should anything ever happen to one of his daughters, now that it had happened, he simply felt ...useless. 

"She's going to be fine," Starscream nudged him a little. "They all are. Remember what I told you, about dropping them from great heights?" 

Megatron looked away wearily. 

"That's not a privilege every parent gets, you know," Starscream continued to tease him. "We can drop them as often as we want and they won't even dent." 

"I won't be dropping them," Megatron grunted. 

"That's because you're a better parent than me," Starscream's smirked proudly, unashamed. "There are _six_ of them Megatron. We're allowed to make mistakes. _You're_ allowed to make mistakes." 

"I've made nothing but mistakes." 

'You've made good choices too," Starscream sighed. There was a pause as he thought. It was embarrassingly lengthy. "You saved us all from that swan, remember." 

Megatron groaned, letting his head fall back further. 

"They're violent birds, Megatron." 

"Shut up, Starscream." 

"I'm being serious." 

Megatron didn't have a chance to further bicker with Starscream over what made a good or bad parent, because Soundwave gave them a little telepathic nudge to tell them they were about to have company. 

Starscream released him and went to join the Communications Officer, standing tall and serious next to them. Megatron straightened and mustered a stern, stoic expression, pleasantly surprised to find his fuel pump had slowed to a gentle beat. He glanced at Starscream appreciatively, but said nothing. Prime emerged from the trees with his command staff, a black bundle of armour cradled in his arms. 

Instinct pulled at Megatron and he was crossing the distance between them without thinking, optics locked on the tiny figure of his daughter nestled against the red Autobot insignia. The rattles and clicks of weapons filled the still night air and he came up short, blinking at the sight of blasters directed at his chest. Behind him there was a similar chorus, and before he could glance backwards Starscream was striding out to join him, expression twisted in fury.

He stood at Megatron side, arms bearing nulls-rays extended before him. Megatron belatedly onlined his fusion cannon. 

But Optimus lowered his weapon before Megatron could lift it. 

"We can be civil about this," he said sternly. "No one here wants the sparkling to come to harm. Do they?" 

Megatron's temper flared, a dormant fire reigniting in his chest he took a stamping step, "How dare you-!"

Starscream's hand slapped against his chest, stopping his advance. "You're holding an innocent unaffiliated Cybertronian unlawfully, Prime. Let her go." 

"We rescued her," Prime's chief saboteur felt the need to interject. 

Optimus lifted a pacifying hand before Starscream could screech a counter argument. "She is not a prisoner. We are happy to release her back into the custody of her creator." Optimus's icy blue optics locked on Megatron. 

Neither Megatron nor Starscream had intended to advertise the existence of their sparklings, ever, to anyone outside their immediate crew. That Prime knew meant the Autobots knew. That the Autobots knew meant, likely, the organic authorities on this planet knew. Megatron wasn't sure what that meant for the longterm safety of his fledgling family, but he feared it. 

Starscream stepped forward, weapons powering down as his arms opened placatingly, proving there was nothing hidden so he could approach to reclaim Black. 

Optimus looked at Megatron for a long moment before passing her over. Megatron watched intently as Black's face turned and squashed itself against her sire's chest. Prime's hand lingered on the back of her helm for just a beat longer than was normal, before withdrawing. 

Behind Prime, his Autobots looked disappointed with the decision. Megatron scowled. 

"What will it take to buy your silence?" He asked. 

Optimus's optics narrowed, "Silence on what, Megatron? Your inability to keep track of an infant?" 

"On her existence," Megatron hissed. 

Optimus leaned back thoughtfully, casting a glance back at two increasing eager looking lieutenants. "I'm sure we can come to some sort of arrangement. One that may even benefit us both." 

Megatron had cringing visions of petitions for ceasefires and armistices. He had to look away, sickened at the idea. 

"You know where to contact me," he muttered, gesturing for Starscream and Soundwave to fall back, "I have a sparkling to put to recharge." 

"Just the one?" Optimus queried knowingly. 

Megatron clenched his jaw to keep from cursing. He stamped off down the hill after his subordinates, utilising every last byte of self-restraint he had available to stop himself from snapping off a nearby tree branch and chasing the Autobots out of the forest with it.

He would have the chance to pay Prime back for this. Perhaps not soon, but one day. 

* * *

  
EPILOGUE 

  
A year into peace time, and Megatron once again found himself wanting to smack Optimus Prime with a big stick-

-After catching the morally bankrupt mech whispering his own designation into the audials of Megatron's daughters, in bid to brainwash them into repeating it as their first word. Their first word! Prime's designation?

Megatron would be _dead_ before he allowed it. 

"These check ups are not an excuse for you to come in here and corrupt my daughters," Megatron snarled. And would have shaken his fists at the Prime had his arms not been occupied by three very active seekers trying to bodily fling themselves off Ratchet's examination table. 

"You asked for my help," Optimus reminded him smugly, sat beside a wall with an additional two sparklings on his lap while Ratchet ran routine developmental tests on the sixth. 

Starscream should have been here doing this, but he had become rather taken with the Autobot's own Aerialbots, and their relative naivety. Though no longer in active warfare with, well, _anyone_ the seeker was keen to absorb them into his own airforce-

-Seeing as it would a great many years yet before their daughters were of any use in the sky. 

Part of Megatron regretted that he would never see them in deadly action, shooting down and tearing through hapless Autobots. He sighed fondly at the thought of that lost future, stroking Fusion's cheek -and getting bitten for the trouble. He tugged his digit free and shook it off, grumbling. 

Perhaps it was best they were being raised in peace. After all, he could never be too sure he hadn't produced six additional 'Starscream's' to compete for power with. 

He glanced over at Prime, and caught the shameless Autobot with his mouth by his sparkling's audials again. " ** _Prime_**!" He barked. 

Optimus's snapped his helm up, "Megatron, if you really don't want their first word to be my designation, perhaps you shouldn't shout it so often." 

Megatron glared fiercely between the smug Prime and his excitedly curious daughters. "It is my prerogative, as their creator, that the first name they call for is _mine_." 

"It's a lot syllables," Prime pointed out. "I think you're setting yourself up for a disappointment." 

Megatron started looking around for something to throw. 

Thankfully, Starscream chose that moment to appear, smile satisfied from an afternoon spent basking in the attention of other fliers. He nodded at Prime and then fixed his mate with a scornful look, "This entire base can hear _you_ shouting at him. There's going to be gossip." 

He bent to scoop White and Grey up out of Optimus's lap, and made unbecoming cooing noises to greet them - which went against everything Megatron was trying to achieve in developing their daughter's speech. One upside to Starscream's presence was how disheartened Prime looked at the loss of the sparkling's attention. 

Megatron smirked to himself, realising now that if the war ever _did_ restart, he had six perfect little weapons. He plucked up Red and dropped her into Prime's lap in White and Grey's absence. "Have this one. She's being fussy," Megatron said by way of excuse. 

A lie Optimus must have spotted, but didn't comment on, hefting Red up to eye level and folding back his battle mask to offer her a smile. She babbled at him talkatively, legs swaying back and forth. 

Starscream caught his gaze and rolled his optics. 

_Didn't I tell you sparklings were the key to ending this war?_

_**Winning** it_, Megatron corrected. _You said they would **win** it for us_

Starscream hid a smile against the top of White's helm. _I don't know, Mighty Megatron. I rather feel like this is a win._

Watching Prime dote on tiny Decepticons, Megatron felt that was a sentiment he could find himself agreeing with. 


End file.
